The Day the World Stopped Turning
by Gaiden
Summary: Where was Sara when the world stopped turning? What happened to her afterwards? And who is the Psychic?
1. Merry Maids

Disclaimer: 

I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, I intend no monetary gain off of this, and don't wish any kind of copyright infringement on Top Cow production or TNT or whomever.

In honour of the officers of the NYPD who served and protected their last on 9-11-01

_Chapter one_

Detective Sara Pezzini, NYPD homicide, eleventh precinct, was currently dressed in a flowery apron, liberally coated with fine grey dust. Her stalker, occasional ally, and overall tall-dark-and-scary type, Ian Nottingham, sat across from her, on the sofa, black hair and beard liberally coated with the fine grey powder, ageing him about forty years.     

It was October thirty-first, Halloween or Samhain, depending on the mystical affiliation of the person. It had been a little over a month-and-a-half since the Day. The two of them had just finished the exhaustive task of clearing every bit of the fine grey powdered concrete out of Pezzini's apartment. 

Her buddy, Gabriel, was fixing something mysterious out of the freezer. Her neighbours had sent literally hundreds of 'care' packages to Sara after the Day, most of which were still in the freezer. There was enough food that Sara wouldn't have to worry about making a meal for the next year, if she was careful. She had also been drowned in a sea of grey-and-blue NYPD t-shirts, sweatshirts, and jogging pants.

The support was nice, half the time her neighbours referred to her as 'the cop in the loft' and avoided her eyes in the corridor, but after the Day, well a little extra was always nice. It helped. Not that there was much that could help. She blinked back a memory:

_"Thanks" said a man, whose name she neither knew nor asked._

_ His suit, probably once a fashionable Armani or something like that, was grey just like her clothing and everything else on this godforsaken bit of street. The world was backlit by an eerie glow, everything was grey. So damn grey. _

_She crawled out from behind the squad car. She'd shoved him, and then dove herself, behind the overturned vehicle when One World Trade collapsed. She'd already seen the __South__Tower__ go, had in fact been stuck in the debris. _

_"No prob" she replied breathlessly, "Now get out, before we all get killed,"_

_He nodded, soot caking off his body. Pezzini fetched her water bottle, now cracked and bleeding on the concrete, and wet a scrap of her jacket, that had gotten ripped off in the initial explosion. She handed it to him._

_"Thanks" he said again, wiping the dust, now a pasty mud, out of his face._

_"Get out," she repeated; "God knows what'll go next." she turned around, preparing to head back into the…mess._

_"Where are you going?" he asked, puzzled that she wasn't returning to safety with him._

_"Back" she grunted, adjusting the almost worthless dust mask, "There're still people out there."_

_"What! Are you nuts!" he exclaimed._

_"I'm a cop" she swished the last usable mouthful of water in her mouth and spit out the grit, "Same thing"_

"Sara, Sara, SARA!" Gabriel shouted, holding a plate of what resembled beef in front of her face, "Jesus, Sara, don't do that, it scares the hell out me."

"Sorry" she apologised, mechanically moving the plate to her lap. She put her boots up on the table, using her knees as a balance for her plate. 

Looking across at Ian, she stifled a laugh, "You look about sixty years old, Nottingham."

"Yeah, well, I wish I looked that good at sixty," Gabriel said wistfully. Ian studiously ignored them both, instead applying himself to the food.

"What no snappy, erudite comeback?" Sara teased.

"Far be it for me, Lady Sara, to impugn on your humour" he said darkly.

"Boo," Gabriel scoffed, "Don't you ever lighten up?"

"Nope," Sara teased, "he's a post-modern Dark Knight. Perpetually gloomy." 

"I guess it's hard to pull off that bad-ass assassin role if you're sunshine and light." Gabriel said grinning, " 'specially if you're in a pink apron with little polka dots."

Nottingham glared at the young netfreak, promising retribution, but still doggedly shovelling food from plate to mouth. Gabriel shucked up a chair, backwards, and dropped into it with a thump. 

The door knocked. Ian looked to Sara, who looked to Gabriel, who sighed and levered himself out of the hardback kitchen chair. He yanked it open, without checking the peephole or asking who was there. 

Ian's hand moved from plate to chest, probably feeling for a weapon of some kind, but Sara just sliced off another piece of pot roast and chewed, if someone was going to try and kill her, at least she would go out on a full stomach. 

"Hey Pez," it was Danny Woo, her partner, whom she'd been in contact with only sporadically since the Day. 

"Hey," she grunted, swallowing with effort, her throat was raw from inhaled concrete, "What's a nice guy like you doing in a dump like this?"

"Cute, very cute," Danny took in the sight, the three intrepid Merry Maids, one a homicidal assassin, the other a mystical warrior with a magic gauntlet, and the third, a geek who probably didn't know which end of the mop was up.  

"Care to join the party?" Gabriel asked, pointing to the half unfrozen lump of beef and gravy and little cooked carrots, "It's pretty decent."

"Thanks, but I just ate," Danny pulled up her only remaining seat, one of the barstools tucked up under the kitchen countertop, "So how are things?"

"I'm so sorry, Danny, I know I've been…well, not here, but…"

"Hey don't apologise to me, Pez, I know you've had it rough since…it happened" he nodded, to Ian and Gabriel, "I'm just glad you found some help." 

She nodded, tears forming behind her throat. It seemed as if they were a hell of a lot closer now than they ever had been before, "Thanks Danny"

"Going back to work tomorrow?"

"Yeah," she nodded, trying to concentrate on slicing her beef instead of her upcoming job, "They kicked me off the Site, too much…stuff going on"

"That's a bitch," he commented sadly, but suddenly grinned, "Dante's looking forwards to having you back"

"Is he now?" she asked, wryly, "Bringing out the red carpet, huh?"      

 "Just warning you," Danny remarked, "Jake's been having it pretty rough too, blames himself for leaving you there."

"I told him to go," Sara said defensively, "he didn't need to get swept up in it all."

"He damn near put a pistol in his mouth when we couldn't find you," Danny admitted, darkly, "wasn't the only one."

Danny ducked his head down, long black locks covering a sheepish expression, Sara's heart cracked, "I'm sorry Danny, I shoulda tried to find you afterwards, I just got…distracted."

"Yeah, I know," he muttered. She'd been on the list of the missing for nearly a week before her frantic partner caught sight of her with a group of fire-fighters, digging out the rubble.  

"So…" said Gabriel, trying to lighten the mood, "How are things going down in the precinct?" 

"Pretty good, nothing too nasty coming up," he tucked an absent strand of hair behind an ear, "We got a live one though, some psychic says she 'saw' a homicide out by the docks."

"Ah," Sara chuckled, "that's why Dante wants me back." 

Even before she got the Witchblade, she'd had a reputation for working really well with the 'live ones'. The stranger the case the better, and even outside the precinct, lots of Detectives, homicide or no, brought the really bizarre cases to Pezzini.  

"Nothing to do with your affinity for the strange and unexplained, does it?" Gabriel teased, smiling.

"Nonsense" Danny grinned, "just her stellar skills as a homicide cop."

"You should be mindful, Lady Sara," Ian said morosely, "that man, Dante, does not mean you well."

"Thank you Dr. Doom-and-Gloom," Sara snipped "I think I've gathered about that much and I told you to quite calling me 'Lady'." 

"Yes Lady," he acknowledged, still managing to bow his head elegantly, even though he was seated on her sofa and wearing a pink apron with little yellow polka dots.

"You goin' somewhere, Danny, or you wanna camp out on my sofa? It's clean." she offered.

"No thanks," Danny stood up, "On my way to Mija's recital, just stopping by to check up on you."

"Thanks" she got up and hugged him around the middle, "I appreciate it."

"No prob" he hugged her back, tightly. "Take care"

"You too" she turned back to the sofa, only to discover that during the little Kodak moment, Ian had also vanished, his plate scraped clean and cushion still warm.

"You know that's kind of scary," Gabriel muttered, "he just…"

"Vanishes" Sara said, her voice raspy, her throat would probably never fully recover from the prolonged inhalation of grey concrete dust, "You get used to it."

"I guess," he said uncertainly, picking up Ian's dishes and his own, and loading them into Sara's brand-new dishwasher.

 Her apartment had gotten pretty trashed, being the loft view and on the right side, or wrong side all things considered, to bear the biggest brunt of the explosion. The windows had all shattered in and over the course of a few weeks it had been buried in nearly a foot of wafting concrete dust. She'd stayed with Gabriel until just recently, when Ian had taken the initiative to clean out the entire place and had new furniture and clothing brought in to replace the ones that had been pretty much ruined. 

All on Irons's credit account, of course.

But Ian was refined, for an all-around bad boy, and hadn't just stopped at replacing the broken bits. He'd ordered a new Jenn-Air Sub-Zero kitchen set, expensive hardwood-and-granite flooring, outrageously chic cast-iron bed set, and all around luxury items, like a hand-woven Turkish carpet and antique living room furniture, which he probably thought were the bare bones of civilization, but weren't things Sara could have ever afforded on a cop salary.

Not that she'd dream of telling him, after all, he'd gone to such trouble. 

"Getting tired, chief?" Gabriel asked, they'd come to a mutual understanding when she stayed with him, essentially a version of the Army's 'don't ask, don't tell' system. He didn't ask, she didn't tell. 

"A bit," she admitted, knowing that it was pretty useless to argue with him, "Maybe I'll turn in."

Gabriel tucked her in, as he'd become accustomed to doing, and kissed her softly. She resisted the urge to tug him in under the blankets, as she had done before, and use his chest as a human pillow. It was partly out of grief and desire for physical comfort, and partly out of the simple need for someone else to shoulder the burden for a while. 

Nottingham she wouldn't trust herself to fall asleep on, afraid of waking up somewhere other than where she'd fallen asleep. Danny, well, Danny would want to 'talk it out' or 'address the issues' and she didn't feel like she could really just drop her 'tough cop' attitude while he was around. 

Gabriel, on the other hand, never asked for an explanation, never offered one of his own, and just accepted whatever she did as 'normal' even when they both knew that it really wasn't. He was gentle, and sometimes, especially now, when she quit being 'Pez' the hard-nose cop or 'Lady Sara' the semi-mythical Wielder and lapsed into 'Just plain Sara' a woman who needed a little bit of comfort and a big strong man, now and then. 

Not that she needed it all the time, just now and then, and Gabriel Bowman was pretty damn good at now and then. 

   For his own part, Gabriel had a humongous crush on Detective Pezzini. Always had, just a little bit, and whether it had been the appeal of the Witchblade or the appeal of the I-eat-nails-for-breakfast attitude, he'd fallen hard for it. Something he accepted with a shrug and a bit of salt tossed over his shoulder. 

Even in her grief and loneliness he knew damn well she didn't really see him as a man. Nottingham was a man, Danny was a man, but Gabriel was a 'buddy'. In other words emotionally 'safe'. She could bawl her eyes out in his arms not feel awkward because he was 'safe'. Beggars couldn't be choosers, though, and he took what she gave him, happily too, because she trusted him with it. 

Trust was good. Trust was a very good thing indeed.

  _See the little blue button right there?_

_Push it. _

_Now_

_I wrote 2,091 words here._

_I only need a few back.           ___


	2. Back on the Job

Disclaimer: 

I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, I intend no monetary gain off of this, and don't wish any kind of copyright infringement on Top Cow production or TNT or whomever.

I also borrowed the phrase 'psychic woo-woo' from my dear friend Nora Roberts. 

In honour of the officers of the NYPD who served and protected their last on 9-11-01

_Chapter Two_

Sara felt odd coming back to the station house after so long an absence. It was like her whole body was different, even her clothes fit differently, and her boots didn't squeak as much over the cheap linoleum flooring. 

The clothing could easily be explained away; Ian had purchased an entirely new wardrobe for her to replace the ones she'd left in her closet and gotten ashed over with that damn grey dust. She was usually a cotton-and-cow-hide type person, favouring the knockoff of the imitation, rather than the real deal. Ian was a cashmere and Italian leather kind of guy, who always bought the original. 

Not that she minded, any woman will tell you that cashmere beats cotton hands down for a comfortable sweater. And soft, supple Italian leather beat the fell-off-the-back-of-the-cattle-car brand any day of week.  

But she was still a cowhide and cotton woman, cashmere just wasn't Sara Pezzini.  

Neither was walking into the police station wearing more weapons than the average third world army. Ian had also, in his tender loving care, carefully laid out knives, guns, mace, and an assortment of neatly concealed super comfortable sheathes. 

Even to the paranoia fuelled Witchblade it had seemed a bit excessive, but Sara really didn't have the strength to argue with the man. Besides, he was damn good at what he did, anyhow, even if he was an assassin. 

"Hey Petzini," heaved a slimy, ego-inflated excuse for a man. Great, just the man she wanted to see, Bruno Dante, Captain of the imbeciles, "Fancy seeing you here"

"Good morning" she let a heartbeat pass, "Sir"

"Yeh, I hear yous been down by Ground Zero, huh? Workin' hard Petzini," he reeked of stale cigarette smoke and cheap cologne, "We almost missed ya, word came out yous was still among the missing. Kinda freaked some people out."

Well knock her over with a feather; Dante was actually putting forth an effort to act like a semi-decent human being, instead of an athletic asshole. It must be raining snowballs in hell, "It kind of freaked me out too"

"Good thing yous here, then, eh? Got a live one for ya, real weirdo," he hacked a deep smoker's cough, but politely turned his head so not to spray her with spit, "Thinks she saw something or other."

"Psychic, psycho, same deal," Sara shrugged, "I'll get to the bottom of it."

"You do that," he grunted, "but yous lissen to me now, no more overtime, you heah? You do your shift an' you go home. I don't want no pasty IA asshole comin' in heah an' sayin I work my people too hard. Got that?"

"Yes, sir" 

She was outwardly calm, but struggled with the insane urge to giggle, _this was Bruno Dante? Even if he wasn't very gracious about it, he'd just given her a break, and without her asking or complaint. Sara fully expected pigs to go soaring by her office window any second now._

"Hey Pez!" exclaimed a much more welcome voice, "Thank God."

"Hey Jake," she allowed him to pull her into a hug, not a manly sort of backslapping hug, but a nice, even, I'm-glad-to-see-you-alive type thing. She remembered what Danny had told her last night about Jake being distraught over her 'missing' status.

"You weren't worried about me, were you rookie?" she made her tone light and teasing, "You know, I always land on my feet." 

"Nine lives, huh?" his voice was shaky, but bantering, "Just remember curiosity killed the cat, willya?"

"Got it," she let him go and surveyed the office around her, "Grab me a cup of coffee, Jake, and let's get down to business."

"Sure thing," Jake turned around and meandered towards the homicide office's wheezing excuse for a coffee machine.

"That was smooth," Danny complimented, "and so are you. Did you get attacked by the fashion police on the way here or something?"

"Top of the laundry pile," she claimed smoothing down the cherry red turtleneck, not really wanting to get into details, "Stuff it, what have we got?"

"Pretty weird," Danny tossed her the folder, "You got the average two bit fortune teller and then you got the average two bit fortune teller who got the willies and came down to the station to report a crime that hasn't been committed."

"Don't suppose the 'psychic trance' was chemically induced?" Sara asked, figuring that was ninety-eight percent of the time what happened with the quasi-mystical faction of the city.

"Nope, she was clean as a whistle; let them test her on the spot. Not even trace elements in the hair or blood. Nothing" Danny leaned back in his chair, confident.

"Great," Sara absently accepted Jake's offering, a cup of steaming black mud that passed for coffee, "any witnesses to this…premonition?"

"Nope just her word" 

"Gaaagh" Sara spat the thick, gooey substance in her mug all over the papers in her hand. "What the hell is this?" 

Danny looked at Jake who looked at Danny and who both looked at her and said, simultaneously, "Coffee" 

"Not in this lifetime," she looked at the mug as though it contained noxious chemical waste, "It might be pretending, but this ain't no cup of coffee."

"Same stuff as it's always been," Danny remarked absently, "maybe you're just not used to it."

"Yeah," Sara thought guiltily of Gabriel's gleaming stainless steel restaurant quality espresso/cappuccino machine. "Guess not."

They were all silent for a long moment, as two of them remembered why it was that the third hadn't been there to pick on the 'company' coffee.  

 "Anyhow," Jake said, trying to ease the sudden tension, "We were waiting for you to get back to deal with this one, these weirdoes are your turf, not ours."

"Oh gee thanks," Sara said rolling her eyes, "love the vote of confidence there"

"Hey," Danny said mildly, "the psychic woo-woo crud has always been your forte, yes? No one else does it better." 

"Thrilled, I'm sure," Sara flipped absently through the pages of the file, "Just what I want to be known for: Mistress of the Psychic Woo-Woo Crud."

"Hey wasn't that one of those girly books, Divine Secrets off the Woo-Woo Clan, or something like that?" Jake asked, puzzled.

"Yeah, it was a book and a movie too," Sara sighed, "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Not bad."

"See?" Danny said charmingly, "it's one of those woman things."

"You wanna eat this?" Sara retorted, waving her folder threateningly, "Or do you want me to go home and tell your wife you said that?"

"Hey now," Danny put up his hands, "No need to get nasty."

"Remember that" she said, "C'mon, let's go find our woo-woo sister."

***

The Lady woo-woo, or Miss Dominique De Laurie, ran her business establishment on the basement level of a sleazy looking Mom & Pop grocery that had long ago got taken over by the local drug lord. Beaded doorway, day-glo orange shag carpeting, low lights, and a neon sign read "Psychic Reading: Tarot, Palms, and Tea."

"Great," Danny muttered, "I feel like I'm walking into a cliché" 

"Than you're going to feel like a real ass before long" Sara said wryly, "I got a feeling that a cliché is exactly what we're walking into."

"Fan-fuckin-tastic" Jake grunted, "Remind me why we do this."

"Concerned citizens, rookie, we like to keep them calm." Sara rapped sharply on the door, from the side, not the front. "Pezzini, NYPD homicide, open up"

What appeared to be an overexcited customer heard 'NYPD' and bolted, nearly running over Jake, who had stood in front of the door, with his eagerness to get out. When the Miss Cleo look-alike came to the door, Sara fully expected to be treated to a diatribe on 'scaring away the clientele'. 

"Good morning officers, to whom do I owe the pleasure?" she dropped the fake Jamaican accent with the first two syllables. 

"Yourself I imagine" Sara enjoyed the slight jump that Miss Dominique made as she hadn't expected the gritty roughness in her voice, "Or did you not come down to the station to report a crime?"

"Ah, the token female," Miss Dominique said pleasantly, "Must be a slow day at the office. Run out of coffee to make?"

"Funny," Danny said, defending Sara, "Considering she's the ranking Detective here, I must spend my days polishing the floor."

"So they sent you out to deal with the Psychic? Or did they say Psycho?" Miss Dominique laughed, "I must be moving up in the scheme of things if I get three of you."

"Something like that" Jake said, "May we come in Miss De Laurie, or do you want to hold this conversation in the street?"

"After you, Detectives" Dominique pulled back the beads and offered them the interior of her 'den', "Tea?"

"Not if you're gonna charge us for it," Sara pointed to the sign, "I don't want my fortune told, thank you."

"Consider it complimentary, Detective. I don't think I want to read your fortune any more than you want me to." Dominique poured each of them a steaming cup from the carafe on the sideboard, "So what got you assigned to the psychic?"

"I've got something of a reputation in the department. I work well with the weirdoes."  Sara said, appreciating the fine flavour of the tea, and toasted with her cup, "Good stuff."

"Thank you" she said gracefully, seating herself, and ignoring the 'weirdoes' comment, "But a homicide Detective in the New York City Police Department having an affinity for the arcane? Forgive me if it sounds a little…over the top."

Jake snorted at the thought of a woman who made her living as a psychic thinking that anything was 'over-the-top'. 

Pezzini just arched a brow and replied, "Not so much for the arcane, just an ability to see through bullshit and get to the heart of the matter." 

"Ah, and we come to the heart of the matter now, yes?" Dominique sipped her tea, cautiously, "You no doubt have read a report of my vision?"

"Of course," Sara smiled. 

"But you want me to repeat it, in order to test if my story changes. This would be the logical thing to do. Very well Detective, I shall go over it yet again." Dominique set her cup down and sighed. 

"It was, now almost four nights ago, a very quiet evening. Not many customers. I was sitting then where you are now, doing nothing more than eating a light meal and reading, waiting for someone to come in."

"What were you reading?" Danny asked.

"Isle of Dogs, by Patricia Cornwall, it was excellent." Dominique replied. 

"Are you fond of her work?" Jake questioned.

"Yes, but I digress. While I was reading and eating, it was a slow night you understand, I was at one moment in my 'office', if you will, and the next I was not." Dominique hesitated, "Understand that most of the 'psychic' work I do has little to do with the true arcane, and much to do with keen observation and the slight of hand. However, there are occasions when I see things, things that others do not."

"Like the future" Sara prompted. 

"Yes," Dominique took a breath, "I was in the body of someone else. A man, he was tall…"

"How tall?" asked Sara.

"Taller than I, at least, I'm five foot eight, in the proper shoes, and he was much taller." Dominique sipped her tea, "Dressed in all black, he had a gun, a very long gun. He was on a rooftop, overlooking the docks. Some people got on a boat, a yacht, a very…large yacht. He sighted through a… scope, I think; I'm not familiar with guns."

"Yeah, a scope," Danny confirmed, "Can you tell us more about it?"

"The gun, yes I suppose, it was long, with a two little legs on tip, like this" she splayed her fingers in an upside down 'v', "To stand it upright, he was lying down, flat on his belly." 

"Did you see who was in the scope?" asked Sara.

"A little, there were several men, one of them in a long, crème coloured jacket. It looked like the two of them were the important men; the others were thugs, just bodyguards." 

"Tell me more about the gun, did it have a magazine like a pistol, or did he load it bullet by bullet?" Danny persisted.

"One at a time," Dominique responded, "It had a thing that slid back, like a lever, and pulled. Then he put in one of the shots." 

"What about the bullets, can you describe them?" Danny asked.

"They were a little longer than this," she held up her fingers, "and very slender, and pointed at the top."

"Do you think you could identify the targets if we ran some pictures by you?" asked Sara.

"I think so," Dominique thought about it, "They had suits on, both of them, dark ones, you couldn't see really in the light. The one had the crème coloured jacket, it was open. He was lean, but older I think, with a very prominent nose and dark hair. The other one was not slender; he was round, with smaller eyes and a bald spot."

"Is it one of these guys?" Sara held out a small picture wallet, like one someone would use for baby portraits or graduations. Dominique flipped through it, absently.

"This one, he the skinny man, I recognise the jacket." Danny, whose face betrayed nothing, looked at Sara who nodded. They knew whose picture it was. 

It was Gallo. 

_See the little blue button right there?_

_Push it. _

_I wrote 2,302 words here._

_I only need a few back _


	3. Gabriel's Place

Disclaimer: 

I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, I intend no monetary gain off of this, and don't wish any kind of copyright infringement on Top Cow production or TNT or whomever.

In honour of the officers of the NYPD who served and protected their last on 9-11-01

_Chapter Three_

"Ok, so the psychic points out Gallo from the line-up, and you and Danny get all twitchy. What next?" Gabriel asked, still typing around on his keyboard, doing whatever arcane things people did on computers.

"So Jake gets all hot and bothered because we're not just laughing her out of house and home, right?  And then we got called out to go out to the scene of another hit and that kinda ended it, well for now at least." Sara swallowed a good slug out of 'her' mug. Gabriel's coffee was the real deal, high-pressure brewed, quality beans, and just a hint of vanilla.

"You're not taking her seriously, though, right?" Gabriel asked, swinging his chair to the front of his office/warehouse/living space. 

"Not literally, but…" Sara paused, "you know, it's like who am I to argue with the supernatural, right?" 

"There's a difference between the Witchblade, a true talisman of power, and a street psychic with a fake Miss Cleo act." Gabriel scooted his chair to the machine of the elixir of the gods and poured himself another cup. 

"I think that Miss Cleo fell asleep and had a scary dream." Sara said, "But I also think that if anyone was going dream about problems with Gallo, I'd be this lady."

"Why?"

"Because her, um, shall we say, office, is right underneath one of his big money Laundromats. If he was having some financial difficulties, outside of his organization, she'd be the first to know." Sara chugged the rest of her mug and sighed, "You're spoiling me, Gabriel. I can't drink the stuff at the station anymore."

"I never knew how you drank it to begin with," He slid over to take her cup for a re-fill, "It's like toxic sludge. That's the stuff that'll put a hole in your stomach."

"Yeah and this won't?" she asked wryly, "I'll be awake 'till midnight at least."

"Sorry"

"Don't be," she stood up to join him at the coffee counter, "It's not like I sleep much anymore, anyhow."

"Yeah, and I'm sorry about that too." He handed her the re-filled cup and kept a hold when she accepted it, making eye contact with her at the same time he gently stroked her fingers.

She broke the steady gaze first, green eyes angling downwards to fix on a large Greek urn on her left. 

"Yeah well, it's not like you could have done something to stop it."

"If there was, I would have." 

Gabriel indulged in a moment of deep loathing for the nameless, faceless persons whom he hoped were burning in hell for their actions. They both fell silent at that comment, Gabriel remembering the first night she'd stayed, overtaxed and spent out, at his apartment. 

_The door of his basement level apartment swung open, without warning. Gabriel spun, thinking it was intruders, thieves, ninja, or what have you, but instead it was Ian Nottingham, whom he recognised instantly. In his arms was a woman, caked in mud, half asleep and falling apart on her feet._

_"Help me" Ian commanded, and a horrified Gabriel realised that the woman in Ian's arms was Sara Pezzini. _

_"What the hell…she was there?" Gabriel asked as he went to the other side and slid under her shoulder to support her body weight. _

_"Yes," Ian said shortly, "The Witchblade has kept her going for this long but I fear it has overtaxed her body."_

_"What are you doing?" Gabriel asked, as Ian lowered the Detective to the floor. _

_"Putting her shoulder back in joint," Ian said abruptly, "That is what stopped her at last. One of the beams from the ruins fell on top of her as she was trying to dig out some of the fire-fighters. The Witchblade can negate hunger and fatigue, but even it cannot make an unresponsive limb work again without assistance."_

_"Is she alright?" Gabriel asked._

_"She will be" he said shortly and Ian climbed on top of Pezzini to rotate the joint back into socket. Even semi-unconscious Sara gave an involuntary shout at the pain of popping it back into the appropriate location._

_"Shit," Gabriel said watching the dust cake off her in clouds, whatever she'd been wearing was now grey. All grey, so damned grey, "Let's get her cleaned up"_

_"If she is unconscious she will drown before she is clean. That would not be wise," Ian observed, "Unless we…help."_

_"Oh come on, bad-ass, it's not like she's got anything you've never seen before." His voice was resolute, but Gabriel's own palms were sweaty at the thought of performing this simple service for the unaware Detective. "She'll kill us if we leave her like this."_

_"Very well" Ian sighed, and once again lifted the unresponsive Pezzini, "Which way is it to the bathroom?"_

_"Over here," Gabriel led him to the 'living space' of his apartment, but then shouted in shock as Ian put her down and drew a knife. "What the hell!"_

_Ian ignored him, and began cutting off the clothing that was caked on and sticky with things he didn't even want to think about identifying. They got Sara into the tub, the hot water running full steam, with a minimum of fuss. _

_"Keep her head up," Ian ordered, as he started to try and rinse off as much of the gore as possible with Gabriel's little bar of Ivory soap. _

_Gabriel moved to the to the other side of the tub, to lift up Sara's head and keep her above the water level. He studiously ignored the long, lean lines of her shoulders and…well…her lovely little…. Focusing on a bottle of shampoo he decided that reading the ingredient label was a very good thing to do right about now._

_Ian finished with her washing quickly, though Gabriel noticed he wasn't nearly as impervious to the Detective's state of undress as he was acting. They got her dried off and into one of Gabriel's t-shirts and boxers with a good bit of shuffling. _

_Bed was an easy matter; he just pulled back the blankets and let Ian drop her in._

_"I'm going to secure her apartment" Ian commanded, "Watch over her."_

_Gabriel had, pulling up a chair by the bedside and watching her sleep. Her face was a motley assortment of bruises, including a twin pain of shiners that indicated at some point in the mayhem she'd broken her nose._

_ He got out the first aid kit, pitiful though it was, and for a lack of anything better to do, started cleaning out and patching up her scratches. _

_"Hey" _

_He almost knocked over the bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide in shock, "Hey, you're supposed to be asleep, chief."_

_"I was" she blinked owlishly, looking like a raccoon with her bruises, "but she woke me back up"_

_He looked at the Witchblade, glowing reddish orange in the low light. "If she knew what was good for you, she'd let you in peace to heal up."_

_"Don't hurt" Sara tried to sit up, but her left shoulder, the one Ian had just rotated back in, collapsed under her weight. She looked at it, punch-drunk with fatigue, and shook it a little, as if wondering why it wasn't working properly. _

_"You dislocated it," Gabriel said, helpfully "It won't work."_

_"Oh" Sara sat back, realizing that she wasn't in her apartment, "Where am I?" _

_"My place" he stuck another band aid on her arm, just for good measure, "I think yours was too close to the explosion." _

_At that she started to tear up, shaking violently with delayed shock. He stood up, to put down the first aid kit, but her arm, the right one, the one with the Witchblade, clamped down on his wrist. Hard._

_"Don't go" she tugged him closer to the bed, and he followed quite unable to wrench out of her grip. He sat, next to her, and she tugged him farther down, he lay back, careful not to disturb her arm as she turned into his chest._

_He held her, through that long night, as she cried and cursed and damned half the populace of the world. Knowing Sara Pezzini, knowing how reticent she was about her feelings, and how she always acted the 'tough cop' even when out of her league, made it even worse. Much worse. _

"It's alright" Sara said, and he realized that he'd gone silent. He sniffled a bit, and he realized that his eyes were blurry and not because he needed glasses. 

"No its not," he countered. 

She reached out, sliding a hand into his long hair, and pulling the wheeled chair closer. Seated as he was, the top of his head fit perfectly under the curve of her breast. 

"We'll get through it." Sara sighed, stroking her fingers through his curls; He smiled at the irony of her comforting him, when she was the one who'd lived through it.

"No one beats up on New York City" he said, sliding one arm around her waist, brushing the gun belt and badge. "We'll just kick 'em in the ass" he could hear her smile, the little noise reverberating down her chest. 

"That's the spirit," she patted his head one last time and he pulled back, feeling a little bereft at the loss of her closeness. 

"Yeah well, I'm not supposed to be the one getting your shirt wet, either." He felt a little embarrassed at his outburst.

"What? Grown men don't cry? You feeling like a big, burly, manly man and don't want to admit that you've feelings?" She smiled a little, "Believe me, even the big bad macho firemen who bench press coke machines and grunt, all cry. They might swear and bluster about it, but they all cry."

"Well," he blushed, "Yeah, I guess. Seeing you like that…well"

"Yeah, I know," she walked back to her perch, an 18th Century French Armoire, said to have belonged to the Sun King Louis XIV. "I was there"

He nodded, taking momentary refuge in shutting off his massive coffee making apparatus. The little toggles and levers relaxed him as he switched everything off. 

"Listen" she said suddenly, "Mija's got another performance tonight. An off-Broadway thing, she's in the chorus line. I got an extra ticket. You doing anything?"

"No," heart racing, though he knew it was a sympathy invitation, "When is it?"

"Nine," she said brusquely, brushing off sawdust from the empty armoire, "I'll pick you up."

"Great" 

_See the little blue button right there?_

_Push it. _

_I wrote 1,804 words here._

_I only need a few back _


	4. Profiles in Courage

Disclaimer: 

I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, I intend no monetary gain off of this, and don't wish any kind of copyright infringement on Top Cow production or TNT or whomever.

In honour of the officers of the NYPD who served and protected their last on 9-11-01

_Chapter Four_

Sara didn't used to hate weekends. 

Before the Day they were fun, she'd hang with Danny or Gabriel or Vicky and do things. Go to the gym; beat up on 'wise old Asian master', girl talk, or something. Now the weekends, all of them, for the past solid month, were dominated by funerals, wakes, memorial services, or the mind numbing task of digging out the rubble. 

Sara woke up early Saturday morning, not relishing the two days ahead. This time it was one of their own they were burying, Patrick O'Callahan, a patrol officer with the Eleventh Precinct. He'd been tall, blond, and unashamedly Irish. They'd worked together, occasionally, before Sara quit patrol and went to homicide. 

She rolled out of bed grimacing at her stiff shoulder, intending to at least try and imitate Gabriel's pick-me-up coffee, but stopped short at the sight before her. It was a garment bag, draped casually over her sofa; however it had not been there when she'd fallen asleep. 

Inside was a dress uniform, expertly tailored, with gilt buttons and white leather kid gloves. It fit her like a second skin, and she didn't need to see the tag to know that it had been custom fitted to her measurements. The polish on her shoes made her bathroom mirror envious. 

Obviously, Ian had left it for her, in one of his inexplicably sweet gestures that made her wonder sometimes. There was also a Starbucks container on her kitchen countertop, double mochaccino with a shot of espresso and ground chocolate sprinkled on top. It was still hot. A little sweetness on a bittersweet day.

Any police officer will tell you that there's one moment of a service funeral that sets them off. For some it's the passing of the casket, others dread the mass itself, for many it's the 21 gun salute or the giving of the flag to the relatives. For Sara Pezzini it was the bagpipes playing 'Danny Boy'.

She'd been just old enough to really remember her father's funeral. She'd sat calmly through the service, had been stoic when presented with his flag and badge, the salute had done nothing but make her jump, but the haunting melody of the pipes just put her one over the edge. Not being of Irish-American upbringing, Danny Boy was hardly on her list of often heard songs. Until then she'd never heard the mournful tune.       

     Now it was all she could hear. 

At the wake, held in an old fashioned Irish pub, Sara claimed her table with a glare that said 'sit at my table and I'll make you eat it'. Even Danny, her partner and best friend, knew better than to try and talk to her then. 

Guinness was hardly her drink of choice. Privately, she thought it was rather nasty. She ordered it anyhow and nursed on one long glass for hours. She knew, from too many wakes, that if she ordered whiskey now she'd be three sheets to the wind and hardly able to stand for the service.  

  The casket passed, the overworked priest said his mass, the shots fired, and the flag was presented. Danny was crying silently next to her. For him it had been the salute. She looked at O'Callahan's wife; she had two little girls next to her, Mollie and Colleen. Cute kids, they played with Danny's girl often enough. They were about the same age Sara'd been when her father's flag had come to her. Poor things, she knew how they felt.  

Then the bagpipes played, first Amazing Grace, the soulful slave tune from the old South, sometimes called America's 'other' national anthem. She'd heard it often enough that the impact was more uplifting than sorrowful. 

Then Danny Boy played. She didn't even know all the words, though many of Patrick's family were singing along. She sighed and resigned herself to the tears that inevitably followed. You win some, you lose some.

****

Dante was in a snit, he got that way sometimes. Something didn't go just perfectly, however innocuous it may be, and he'd be off on a tangent worse than a pregnant woman with an insatiable craving. 

On those days she was sorely tempted to offer him a Mydol and hot water bottle.

 "Petzini!" her Captain hollered. One of these days, when she got tired of working for this slug, she'd slip up and call him 'capo' instead of 'captain'.

"Yes, sir?" 

"C'mere" he motioned to his office, a dimly lit closet that reeked of stale cigars and sweat. "Petzini, I got problem"

'You have many problems' was on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it, and just inclined her head in what she hoped was an interested gesture. 

"I got 'dis people, see, an' they got some wacky idea in they head about capturing the real-life of one of my Homicide cops as some photojournalism crap." Dante paused, relishing the next phrase, "They think you'll be a valuable 'human interest' project."

"You want me to baby-sit some photographer?"

"Hey" he said with what might have been a winning grin, "Public Relations, y'know? I didn't pick 'ya."

"When is this 'public relations' gig starting?" she asked, gritting her teeth and wishing him nine hells away.

"She's in your office." he grinned again, revealing yellowed, capped teeth. God he was enjoying this. He loved making her squirm and having to baby sit a press box idiot, with everything going on about her, was her worst idea of torture.

"Oh and Petzini" he called back, "Woo'll take your rookie. You just gotta worry 'bout your little friend."

Oh this was evil. Nasty, mean, wicked, and cruel. Suddenly ice flowed down her back. What about the Witchblade? Danny knew that strange things happened when she was around, but no way on this green earth that Pezzini was going to tolerate some two bit sleezeball asking questions. Or God forbid they catch something on tape. This was not good.

  "Hello Detective," a cheerful voice called as she went back to her office, "I'm Maria Gonzales, and I'll be your 'cameraman' for the duration. I'm from TLC; we're doing a series called Profiles in Courage." 

"Charmed" Pez growled, and glared witheringly at the young woman. "Just stay out of my way." 

"I know this is an imposition" she said, somewhat less enthusiastically, "I'll try to be as…discreet as possible." 

"You do that" she snarled, and Danny looked at her sharply and whispered 'Pez' admonishingly. He was notoriously protective of pretty young women. 

  "C'mon Danny," Jake said winningly, "We got follow-up on the Foster Street 415" he grinned at Maria, making her blush a little.  

"Well Detective," said the young, inexperienced, and stunningly naïve camerawoman, "what's on for today?"

"Inter-Precinct," Sara growled, "Jumper" 

"Ok" she said cheerfully, and pulled out a small tape recorder, and began to dictate the day, time, and case. Pez grabbed her leather jacket and helmet. Let's see if this camerawoman can ride. 

By the time they got to the scene, Miss Maria B. Demille was shivering, soaked, and clutching Sara's back like a two year old monkey. A thin nylon jacket was no protection from a chill on a motorbike and neither did the camerawoman wear leather chaps to protect her legs from the unsavoury street debris that the wheels kicked up. 

"T-t-th-that was fast" she chattered, and tried to shake out the stiffness from sitting in an unfamiliar position. "What are we doing here?"

"Jumper" Sara said shortly, "We're working with Vice on this one, we think it was a prostitute. Possibly an 'assisted' jump"

"I'll bet" Maria said shakily, panning the less-than-stellar neighbourhood with her little camera, "This does seem like a 'vice' type of place."

"Yeah" Sara climbed the steps three at a time, making the camerawoman run a little to catch up, warily eyeing the building's inhabitants as they poked out their heads. 

"Hey Pez" greeted Tom Delaney, a vice cop with 9th precinct, "Who's your shadow?"

"Journalist," she spat, like a four-letter word, "I'm a 'human interest' story" 

"Jeez" he glanced at the pale, slightly jumpy woman, and slapped Pez on the shoulder sympathetically, "Sorry to hear it."

"So what have we got?" Sara waited until he'd turned around to rub her stinging shoulder, either he didn't know his own strength, or it was acting up again. 

"Jumper," he said bluntly, "ten stories," he made a popping sound, "bug squat when she finally got down." 

Maria, showing a great deal more courage than Sara thought she had, tipped her camera lens over the edge to get a close up of the body. She then promptly turned green and puked up her lunch into a plastic baggie that a sympathetic crime scene investigator held open for her. 

They stayed there all day, as everyone on the floor had to be interviewed, and many of the residents were not at all amenable to this process. Maria jumped and squeaked when beer-fed deadbeats wheezed out of their apartments shouting obscenities and denials. 

This was the un-glamorous side of Detective work, the pavement pounding, the patience trying, the confusion tolerance. Interviewing three dozen unemployed drunks in the hopes that one of them might have woken out of his booze induced stupor long enough to hear something of interest.

Pezzini had been a Detective long enough to know that some of these days just needed to be put up with, that there was not much of anything anyone could do about it. Working patrol had been even rougher, you were always first on the scene with whatever was going down, sometimes even before it had finished going down. 

It was no picnic; Sara was making sure that this Maria woman knew it. 

When they returned to the station all Pez wanted to do was get a drink and sleep off the day. He shoulder ached like a bitch in heat and she was half numb from listening to repeated exclamations of innocence in thick New York speak. 

"Hey Pez," Danny greeted her from behind a thick stack of paperwork, "Rough?"

"mmm" she grunted slid behind her own stack of filing that needed to be done. Maria, soaked, shivering, and weaving slightly on her feet, accepted a cup of 'coffee' from Jake gratefully.

They worked silently together, the occasional 'what's the date?' or 'how many grams of heroin?' drifting back and forth between the partners. Danny finished first, having started ahead of time, and offered to take some of Pez's stack so they could make it to O'Malley's before all the good seats got taken.   

Jake ordered a beer on tap, some odd sounding foreign variety, and Danny had a whiskey sour. Sara had Jack Daniels, straight, no ice. The alcohol numbed Sara's shoulder, she didn't feel quite a strung out as she had that morning.  

"Well Pez, I think it worked" Danny said, finally. 

"What?" she asked, not quite sure to what he was referring. 

"That Maria person, the camera girl, caught her asking Dante for another assignment. Seems working with homicide isn't her cup of tea." He shook his head sadly into his drink, "You coulda been a little more welcoming."

"And Dante coulda asked for volunteers," Sara retorted, "but I don't see pigs flying over Manhattan Island either."

"Courtesy, Pez, at least," Danny argued. 

"That kid didn't have the foggiest idea what she thought she was getting into," Sara defended, "She thought it was some kind of glossy eight by ten, a heroic pose, or some life defining event. It's damn grind, Danny, twelve hours a day. Sure we're popular now, but I'll give you twelve months and they'll be cutting our pay and calling us 'racist pigs' again." 

She took a deep slug of her Jack, "They don't think they need cops, someone else always does. Someone else always gets shot, someone else always need something. All they care about are parking tickets and speed traps." 

"Pez, you need to get some rest, Ok?" Danny slid her tumbler out of her hands and reached for his jacket, "lemme drive you home."

"No" she growled grabbing the tumbler and downing the last bit of Jack with a hissing wince, "I'll drive my own fucking self home, Danny, I don't need to be fucking coddled like some two bit rookie." 

Jake made as if to stop her, but Danny tugged on his shoulder and shook his head, he'd seen Sara in one of her 'moods' before. She was frustrated, upset, angry and just about worn down. Taking it out on the people she cared for was incidental.            

 _See the little blue button right there?_

_Push it. _

_I wrote 2,094 words here._

_I only need a few back_


	5. Disappearing Dominique

Disclaimer: 

I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, I intend no monetary gain off of this, and don't wish any kind of copyright infringement on Top Cow production or TNT or whomever.

Note: Re-posted b/c someone, bless their soul, reminded me that Danny's wife's name is Leigh. I just picked Marta 'cause she's a friend of mine, SO I switched things around. Thanks!

In honour of the officers of the NYPD who served and protected their last on 9-11-01

_Chapter Five_

Danny forgave Sara long before she asked for forgiveness. They all had their own days when they questioned the wisdom of a job that asked more, sometimes, than it gave. If anyone hadn't questioned the wisdom of being a cop in the Big Apple, then they needed some help. 

As it was, Sara's black mood lasted almost a full week, by the end of which the entire precinct was walking lightly around Pezzini. Even Dante didn't harass her nearly as much as he usually did, though that may have been self-preservation. She was known to be vicious when cornered.

The door to 'their' office blasted open with a slam, Pezzini, not having even bothered to remove her leather riding chaps or jacket, flew through and almost decapitated Danny by grabbing his collar. 

"Danny, what does this look like?" she asked, with a pleasant tone that fooled absolutely no one.    

"Mob style hit," he gasped, trying to de-constrict his collar, "Seven, maybe nine, millimetre projectile."

"How about a 7.62 millimetre bolt-action round, fired from a SR-90 .300 Winchester Magnum Sniper rifle, off the top of a warehouse, and into the skull of Mr. Giancarlo Dantoni as he sipped Chianti on the deck of his yacht," She grinned madly. 

"I think we need to go talk to little Miss Cleo again." Jake said, "Our prime suspect has just become suspicious."

"Amen," said Danny, finally wrenching free of Pez's grip, "When did this happen?"

"Last night," she grumbled, "It was so obviously a mob hit, no one really bothered investigating further. Sent it down to vice."

"Well I think we need to go bother some people, now don't we?" said Jake.

Jake and Danny drove the police issue plain marked car. Sara took her Buell. Therefore she arrived at the scene of Miss Dominique's Den considerably ahead of her buddies. The 'customers' vacated quickly as she flashed her gun first, then her badge.

"Tsk, tsk, Detective Pezzini," Miss Dominique said pleasantly, "I won't have any more lunch money if you continue scaring away the clientele"

"Oh poor baby," Pez sent the beaded doorway scattering as she burst her way in, "I'm sure you'll manage."

"I take it my premonition was fulfilled" she made it a statement, rather than a question, "Tea?" 

"Sure," Pez agreed, "and what makes you say that?"

"I'm psychic" she deadpanned, pouring the tea and handing the Detective a cup.

"Really?" Pez asked, acting astonished, "Now maybe you can tell me why I shouldn't pick you up right now for ordering, or rather receiving an order, to take out some of Gallo's mob buddies." 

"This man, Gallo, wouldn't keep his so-called 'buddies' if he continued to have them shot." Miss Dominique, "And what logic would there be for me to order or participate in an assassination and tell the police the entire tale beforehand?"

"I don't give a shit about logic," Sara folded her legs under her as they sat by the low table; "You're on my list." 

"I take it that's a bad thing?" Miss Dominique asked.

"Very" said Danny, whom had just arrived with Jake in tow, "She's not one to mess with."

"Ah," Dominique turned to the new arrivals, "If it isn't the Brothers Karamatzov. Good morning gentlemen"

"Good morning," Danny greeted. 

"You do realise there were three Brothers Karamatzov." Sara asked.

"Details," Dominique brightly, pouring the two gentlemen cups of tea, "I would have said the Three Musketeers, but there were four of them." 

"Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan," Sara supplied.

"You're well read for a police officer." Dominique acknowledged.

"You're well read for a cheap psychic." Sara countered.

"I'm not cheap," Dominique said, slightly miffed, "Nor are my services easily bought."

"I think you've sprained her dignity," Danny observed.

"Have you ever tried to walk with a sprained dignity?" Dominique asked, "It's very uncomfortable."

"I should imagine," Sara said, almost smiling, "but you're not going to distract me that easily. You're coming to the station."

"I am not," Dominique declared brusquely, "It would be unpardonable for a woman in my position."

"And what position is that?"

"I" she said, with considerable dignity, "am a pillar of this community, to haul me off in some…vile little 'paddy wagon' or whatever you seem to call it these days would be very detrimental to my position and employment. People trust me with their deepest secrets and darkest fears."

"Tell it to your lawyer," Sara chortled, "and given the community, I don't know if I'd want to claim that particular status." 

"You mock me," she said stiffly, affronted.

"Just a bit," Sara tossed down the rest of the tea, "Are you coming quietly or do we have to restrain you?"

"I will go under my own power, thank you." Dominique stood, turning off the little blue flame under the tea, "And speaking of bracelets, Detective, yours is very lovely."

She made eye contact with Sara, chocolate brown to emerald green. Her eyes seemed backlit, as if by some other power. She smiled a secretive, private smile. Sara convulsively covered the Witchblade with her left hand, not liking the way the woman was looking at it.

"Cuff her," Sara ordered. 

Danny started, but obeyed her request. Dominique balked at having her hands secured behind her, instead offering them in front, wrists crossed. Jake shrugged and figured that two big, strong men could handle one scrawny psychic if she got a little frisky, so he obliged her. 

"I must still lock up my office" Dominique asked, "May I?"

"Sure," Pez got out of the way as Dominique removed a small set of keys from her pocket and latched the knob and deadbolt, after setting the alarm. Sara held out her hand and Dominique dropped her keys into her palm. 

"Search her" Sara ordered, "We don't want to be surprised, do we?"   

"I protest, this is really not necessary," she squirmed as Jake gently patted down the legs and sleeves of her voluminous gown and shook his head, there was nothing special. 

"Get in the car,"

 Sara herself put on her helmet and swung a leg over her Buell, keeping pace this time, with her partners and their cargo. It worked out just fine until they turned the last corner to the station.

"What the hell!" 

In the moment between the unmarked car turning the corner and Sara turning in behind it Dominique vanished. Not leapt out of the car and ran away. She simply vanished. As in there-one-second-and-not-there-the-next.

The mambo line screeched to a halt as Danny, Jake, and Sara tried to find their missing person. Jake ran uptown, Danny went downtown, and Sara stood there and fumed, trying to draw her back to them with sheer willpower. It didn't work.

"What do you mean we lost her!" Sara shouted, "The stupid door is locked, there's a bullet-proof partition, and there's no hole in the floor! We couldn't have lost her."    

"Well she's not there!" Jake argued back. 

"Charming," She said, wrenching off her helmet, and not so incidentally her shoulder, "Shit!"

"Pez calm down, ok, we get to her. I'll call out an APB." Danny tried to placate her.

"It's not that, I hurt my shoulder." Sara winced and rolled it gingerly, "Damn…." She muttered, unintelligibly cursing. 

"When'd that happen?" Jake asked.

"I was working, y'know… there, and one of the I-beams fell off of whatever was holding it up." She tried to work out the kinks, "Dislocated it. Hurt like nobody's business"  

"An I-beam fell on top of you and it _just dislocated your shoulder, Pez you're lucky to be alive!" Jake said, open-mouthed._

"Waitaminute" Danny held up a hand, "How long ago was this?" 

"I don't know," Sara grumped, "Long enough" 

"Did you see a doctor?" Danny asked.

"The place was crawling with doctors!" she temporised. 

"But did _you see one?" he persisted._

"A…friend put it back in. I was up and working again in a couple hours" Sara defended. 

"You're coming home with me tonight, I don't want to hear it Pez, Leigh's gonna look you over. No exceptions." 

Danny's wife, Leigh, was a paediatric doctor for Our Mother of Mercy Hospital or O-MOM to the residents. She was also a mother hen of the first degree. Sara had never seen her in a 'professional' mode, seeing as she had no children, but if her behaviour towards Danny when he was 'under the weather' was anything like her treatment of Sara, then Sara was in a whole lot of trouble.  

"Ooo" Leigh said, as Sara painfully pulled off her t-shirt. They were closeted off in the master bedroom of Danny's home, to keep out of the sight of curious kids. 

"How long did you say that it's been since this happened?" Danny asked again, wincing at the motley bruising and discolouration of her shoulder. 

"I don't know, a while, I was…kinda out of it for a few weeks, if you get my drift. Wasn't paying too much attention as long as it still worked," Sara hissed in pain as Leigh gently probed the injury. 

"Well it shouldn't have."  Leigh looked around at the damage, "As a matter of fact it shouldn't even be mobile now, this is…you must be in agony."

"It smarts," she shrugged it off.

"Pez, c'mon, you almost ripped your arm right off your body," Danny said forcefully, "You don't have to act all tough about this."

"It hurts, ok! Is that what you want to hear?" She tried to turn to face him, but Leigh had a surprisingly strong grip on her, "I've dislocated it before, that hurt too."

"Well I don't know who made that diagnosis, but this shoulder wasn't just dislocated." Leigh said finally.

"It wasn't?" Danny asked, surprised.

"I'm not orthopaedic surgeon and I don't have an MRI in my closet, but let's just say you're more on the mark. It's broken, at least, we can thank God there's no obvious nerve damage, but all of these ligaments are not where they're supposed to be." Leigh walked around to face Sara, "And I would say, without a doubt, that you've got some bone chips rubbing around in there somewhere."

"Ewww" Sara replied, thinking of the bits rubbing about inside her, "That's…gross."

"Yeah, and if you let this continue to go untreated you're going to loose mobility in the whole thing, if not the entire arm." Leigh said seriously. 

"The what…she might lose it?" 

Danny seemed more upset than Sara actually felt. Somehow it wasn't all that shocking, she'd known almost from the moment Ian had popped it back in that this was not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill dislocation. 

"So what happens?" 

"So I write you a referral and you get to O-MOM. Sooner rather than later," Leigh looked even graver, if it was possible, "I'm not kidding. I can't explain how you've been able to work on this. It should have fallen off a week ago, at least. Either your natural immunity is healing you like …that X-Men guy, or the Incredible Hulk or something, or you have one hell of a guardian angel."

Sara started guiltily, her 'natural healing ability' was more along the lines of the Witchblade instead of Wolverine, but the effect was the same. It must have blocked out most of the pain, using her anger and rage to fuel its power. She rolled it again, wincing. Seeing a doctor was not on her 'To Do' list. It was right up there with visiting the dentist for a root canal or spending time 'bonding' with Dante in his office. People in white lab coats gave her the willies.  

"You sure I have to go to a doctor?" She knew she sounded whiny, but she did not want some stranger asking questions. 

"Do you want me to hold your hand?" Danny asked, "I used to do that for scooter when she needed shots."

'Scooter' was his nickname for his baby girl. Sara took the teasing in stride, "I just don't like strange people touching me." That was an understatement if she'd ever said one. "Its…it doesn't work."

"Well…since I'm the one who referred you, I'll be there too." Leigh smiled, reassuringly, "And I know, Dr. Reynolds has a very soft touch. She won't pry, I promise."

Looking at Danny, then at Leigh, and then, more importantly, at the massive bruising and discolouration on her left shoulder, Sara sighed, "Fine. But this better be good."      

_See the little blue button right there?_

_Push it. _

_I wrote 2,060 words here._

_I only need a few back_


	6. Back At the Ranch

Disclaimer: 

I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, I intend no monetary gain off of this, and don't wish any kind of copyright infringement on Top Cow production or TNT or whomever.

In honour of the officers of the NYPD who served and protected their last on 9-11-01

_Chapter Six_

"Anyway," Sara said, lounging on one of Gabriel's many random pieces of furniture, "They got me up there, into the room, and this doctor lady comes in. She pulled out a needle, says it's 'just a painkiller', jabs it in my arm, and sixteen hours later I wake up in the ICRU with my shoulder in a cast."

"He set you up," she could hear him smiling as he made his way around the shelves, "and you fell for it."

"Gabe," she chuckled "if I didn't need the man as much as I do, I'd have strangled him. With one hand. And I'm sure my little witchy friend would have been more than happy to help."

"Well I don't think she's too fond of Danny to begin with." Gabriel stuck his head out from behind the racks of inventory; all sorts of arcane, weird, and just truly bizarre objects were neatly stored and labelled around him. "The Witchblade doesn't exactly like men." 

"Right," Sara pulled on her cup of coffee, revelling in the aroma that had been denied to her in the hospital. "They took her off"

"They what!" he pulled off his little magnifying lens and stared at her, "She let them?" 

"I don't think it was a matter of her letting them, both of us were really out of it for a few." Sara made a face, remembering the floating, whirling sensation of morphine, "Almost killed the nurse that brought her back. I put her back on and she damn hear eviscerated the poor girl."

"Ouch," Gabriel dropped down next to Sara on the ancient sofa, "Seriously though, chief, I'm too young for a heart attack. Next time, tell me when you're going in for major surgery. I almost had an aneurysm on the spot when I got your call to 'rescue' you." 

"I didn't know I was going in for surgery!" she protested.

"You made it sound like they put you in a prison hospital or something," he observed. 

"Hey, the food sucks, you're stuck in five by ten white room, and they draw bodily fluids on a regular basis. At least in prison they let you out in the yard once or twice a day and they can't take blood without permission or suspect." Sara tried to reflexively roll her shoulder, but the combination of brace, bandage, plaster, padding, and sling held her firmly immobile.   

"So how long is it gonna take Danny to figure out that you're not there?" Gabriel asked, absently, more than a little distracted by his inventory list.

"Oh he knows," Sara sat on the back of the sofa, leaning against the wall, Gabriel was on the cushions, at her feet, and grunted, "he's got Leigh stopping by every coupla hours, to 'check up' on me. I think they're afraid I'd assault someone."

"So do I have to, like, guard my back or something?" Gabriel asked, remembering Ian's many 'visits' to 'check up' on Sara as she stayed with him. 

"Probably, he's not a lunatic, like Ian, but he'll come looking for me." She shifted, trying to find a comfortable position for her arm, "He doesn't know where your place is, though, that'll give me a few hours head start." 

"Why don't you just bring him here anyhow?"  Gabriel asked, "It's not like you can't trust him."

"I know," Sara tried to explain, "It's just with Ian hanging around in my apartment half the time it doesn't feel…I don't know, private I guess. It's like a train station. He walks in and out all the time. Danny's part of work, y'know, he's got expectations and I got secrets, and those don't mesh real well. They can't be in here, though, and you know about my little friend, so it's more comfortable."  

"I'm flattered," he grinned.

"Yeah, well don't let it go to your head," she grumbled, ruffling his curly hair, "Your ego is bad enough."

"My ego?" he said sarcastically, but leaned back into her caress, "I don't have one, you make sure of it."

"Right," she chuckled, and kept running her hand through his curls. 

They were soft and springy, and he was warm, radiating heat. From her vantage point she could see that he had strong shoulders, graceful hands, and he smelled like….Whoa. 'Down girl', she told her hormones. This is Gabriel; we do not hit on Gabriel. Gabriel is our friend; he is young, impressionable, and NOT a candidate for sniffing at. In any sense of the word. 'Jailbait,' she repeated to herself, 'Jailbait'. 

"If you need anything, like say an extra hand, you know where I live." Gabriel offered, trying not to move so that she'd continue to absently stroke his hair, "I know you're not supposed to be alone, they told me to keep an eye on you."

"Yeah well, with Nottingham spending his time stalking around my place, all I have to do is whisper and he'd come through the skylight." She said wryly. 

"You don't have a skylight." 

"Hmm, did I hear him right? Yes, I know sweetie, he's asking to get immolated. But we don't want to hurt him, at least not today. He's got the resources we need." Sara pretended to talk to the Witchblade, "Next time, I promise."

"Funny," he said sarcastically, as she tugged on a fistful of his hair, "Very funny" 

"Well don't piss her off," Sara said lightly, teasing, "Or you will find yourself on the business end of…" she stopped, Gabriel looked up, seeing her eyes sliding towards blank, "of…of…"

The Witchblade flared the crystal, lighting up the low lit basement storage room. Gabriel watched as Sara slowly fell into the hypnotic spell of a vision. He gently extricated his hair from her grip and stood up. He'd never actually seen her go into one of her vision trances, though Sara'd told him about them. The Witchblade was now showing her scenes, from another Wielder's life, maybe, or the future, or something that was happening now.

He had no clue how long this would last, she told him that sometimes they lasted for a few seconds, like if she was trying to solve a case, or even a few hours, at night, when it was sure she wouldn't be disturbed. He wasn't quite sure what category the Witchblade had put him in, if he was 'safe' enough that the Witchblade would leave Sara vulnerable for a few hours or if it'd flash her back to life in a minute, drawn and ready to defend. 

_Flash_

_An image of a woman wearing the Witchblade_

_Flash_

_Joan of Arc, refusing to relinquish the Blade to another_

_Flash_

_A stranger, one not recognised as a Wielder, putting on the Blade. Screaming, agony, pain, death_

_Flash_

_Voices running around, insanity, the Blade whispering: "Pretender, Pretenders, see the fate of our pretenders"_

_Flash _

_Rightful Wielders lined up on one side of a bloody field, Pretenders on the other, running towards each other, screaming battle cries_

_Flash_

_I shall recognise no Pretenders _

_Flash _

_Sara, Sara, Sara, no pretenders shall hold me _

"Sara, Sara!" Danny was slapping her, trying to snap her out of it, "Sara damnit, wake up!" 

She rolled, groggily, and almost screamed as her shoulder, bumped roughly against the concrete wall of Gabriel's storage basement. The voices echoed in her head, something about pretenders. She could barely remember, from the Witchblade's other visions, that in the previous timeline several pretenders had made a bid for the Witchblade, they'd all died, horribly. 

Over the history she'd just seen, the Witchblade itself fought off the forced impositions of pretenders. Irons's hand, although severed, was still scarred with the mark from his abortive attempt. He was lucky, weaker pretenders had gone insane, horribly so, and turned the Blade on themselves. 

"Sara!" 

"Huh?" she wove slightly, but focused on the sound of Danny's voice to pull her back to the waking world. Wait a minute, Danny wasn't supposed to be here, this was Gabriel's space. The Witchblade flared in annoyance, kill the usurper.

"Hey chief, you were out for a while, you Ok?" Gabriel, her mind spit out, and the Witchblade registered him as wise-safe-help-man. The Witchblade stood down, not wanting to risk Gabriel's life over an annoyance. 

"Yeah, I'm fine. Danny?" she asked, numbly, "Where'd you come from?"

"You checked out of the Hospital you half-witted idiot; I'm here to put you back." Danny stood up, still wearing his heavy overcoat, she knew, without knowing quite how she knew, that he'd just walked in.

"Danny I don't need to be there, it's dangerous." She protested. 

"Damn right it's dangerous, you're not out of the woods yet, that arm is still in critical condition." He tried to convince her to get up.

"No," she said, her voice sounding raspy and distant to her ears, "not for me, for them, it's not a safe place for them. Danny… do you remember when we had that conversation: blind faith with eyes wide open?"

"You're not gonna pull that now, Pez, no way is that gonna fly." He shook his head, folding his arms over his chest. 

"Danny," her voice broke, she wanted desperately to just admit everything to him, let the burden of knowledge sit on someone else's shoulders, "Please."

"Please what?" he asked. 

"Listen: even without this cast" she shook her arm, wincing as lancelets of pain ran up her body, "or the surgery, I would have recovered. It would have taken a lot longer, but it would have happened. This is quicker, but it would have been alright without it."

"Bull," he said, squaring his shoulders, "Prove it"

"I can't, you have to trust me," she was almost begging, "please"

"Sara," he sighed, shaking his head. 

"Hey," said Gabriel, surprising everyone, "Why do you think she's here? Who else in the City has what I've got here? I got stuff that'd make your Grandma swear like a sailor, she's gonna be fine. Believe me."

"Why the hell should I?"

 Danny took his frustration with Pez's refusal to tell him what was really going on out on the ready target of the young entrepreneur. He shoved him back, knocking Gabriel into a shelf. 

"Because she called me, not you," Gabriel might not be a 'venerable old Asian master' but he could still hit below the belt. "I know what to do."

"What, with all your little tourist trap 'relics'?" Danny argued scoffing, "Oh I'm scared." 

Impugned at his 'honour' getting called into question Gabriel got one good swing at Danny before the other man, much more highly trained, took him down. They rolled on the floor, amid Sara's protestations to stop. Suddenly, as if just realising Gabriel was in danger of giving in completely, the Witchblade surged to life. 

"Shhhhhiiiinnnkkk" was the loud sound in the quiet room. 

Both men stopped instantly, Sara closed her eyes with a grimace, fighting off the sudden urge to eviscerate her best friend. Gabriel could see the Blade; in this timeline he'd never actually seen the combat form of the Witchblade. Danny saw nothing, but knew damn well something was going on. He'd heard that noise before, usually just before someone who'd been bugging them suddenly sprouted blood. 

"I think," Sara said with calmness she did not feel, "that enough is enough."

"Ok," Danny said, getting off of Gabriel, who was breathing roughly through a heavy nosebleed. "Ok, you got me. There's something funny going on, you can't tell me, that's Ok. Blind faith with eyes wide open" 

"I don't deserve you, Danny, I really don't," Sara smiled at him, "You're a damn good friend."

"Yeah well, someone's gotta be, you're too damn contrary to make many of them Pez," Danny said.

"Great," Gabriel said with a painful grunt, "Now you mind getting over the Kodak moment and helping me out here?"              

"Ooooo" Sara grinned sympathetically, "C'mere valiant warrior, you know better than to pick a fight with Danny. Hell, I know better than to pick a fight with Danny. I guess it's one of those testosterone laden male macho things, isn't it? Here," she handed him her bandanna, usually kept in her jeans pocket along with a single squeeze packet of anti-bacterial no-water hand cleanser. 

"Thanks" he pressed the cloth to his nose, immediately soaking the fabric, "Is it broken?" 

"If you have to ask, then it's not" Danny said pleasantly, "For a lightweight you have a decent punch, Bowman."

"Not decent enough," Gabriel said, muffled through the fabric.

"C'mon," Sara used her good arm to help him off the concrete, grinning at Danny's backhanded compliment, "Let's get you some ice, ok?"

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	7. Pounding Pavement

Disclaimer: 

I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, I intend no monetary gain off of this, and don't wish any kind of copyright infringement on Top Cow production or TNT or whomever.

In honour of the officers of the NYPD who served and protected their last on 9-11-01

_Chapter Six_

"So Petzini, yous got a little roughed up, huh? How long dis gonna take?" Dante breathed heavily, pluming putrid blue smoke, and making Sara want to gag from the stink of his cheap cigar.

"Not long, it's just dislocated, I should be out of the sling in a week or so," she lied, bald-faced, but she knew the Witchblade would back her up.

"What 'bout dis, psycho person then, eh? Yous lost our prime suspect, I don' like dat." Dante was really on his dignity now, twirling the slimy butt end of the cigar and pretending to examine it, "Find her Petzini, or yous gonna be in more trouble than a sling, you heah?"

"Yes Sir" she snapped crisply, and pushed her way through the smoke into the clean air of her own office. Breathing deeply, she tried to make the buzzing in her head stop. Her sinuses really didn't like cigar smoke. 

"Whew, you stink; Dante got something stuck up his butt again?" Jake asked.

"Yeah, he wants to know where little Miss Cleo is." Pez opened a window and let the crisp autumn breeze drift into the building. "I don't think he likes 'we lost her' as an excuse."

"Well, she was in the car," Jake protested, "and then she wasn't. She just vanished." 

"Yeah well 'vanished' isn't a good excuse either," Danny came back in, clutching a stack of small colour photos, "C'mon let's get these distributed."

"Where we headed?" asked Jake, "Psychic's R Us?"

"Something like that," Sara temporised, "I know some people, who know some people, who'll get the word spread in the right quarters that our Miss Cleo wannabe is on my list." 

"We'll also hit Penn station, Grand Central, and a coupla Airports; make sure she hasn't gone out of the area." Danny split the stack, "Pez, you take the Funny Platoon, and Penn Station. Jake and I will hit Grand Central, the Bus Depot, La Guardia and the plainclothes offices. Make sure everyone knows she's wanted for questioning. We'll meet you at JFK."

"Great," Pez accepted the stack of mug shots, "Keep your heads up, people, good luck." 

Sara climbed on her Buell, fastening the chaps securely around her hips and tucking the jacket snugly around her shoulder. She took the sling off temporarily, so she could drive, but kept it wrapped up in the tight brace. Technically she had the longer list of places to go, but this would take her as nearly as much time. Firstly, her bike could make traffic a lot better than the car, and secondly, the real weirdoes, the ones who believed, trusted her. 

She gave them a fair rap, unlike most of the officers, and protected them from too much harassment over futuristic predictions, the occasional tourist scam, and the habitual 'divine intervention' through mind-altering drugs. They'd keep their eyes open, because they didn't want to lose the support of one of the few cops that didn't laugh them out of the station. 

It wasn't hard, making nice with strange people, she sipped innumerable cups of green tea, listened to countless, and sometimes completely contrary, predictions for the future, and made like an all around good cop.  She distributed Miss Dominique's photo to the right places and knew that the undercurrent of the community would latch on the one who'd compromised their good relations with the NYPD. 

Next stop was Penn Station, on the other side of the big post office and a block or so away from Macy's. She had always thought it curious that one of the big rail lines in and out of Manhattan was named Pennsylvania Station, but she didn't name it, so that really wasn't her problem. 

The place was crawling with soldiers and uniformed cops. She didn't walk more than five feet in before one of the Army guys stepped up and asked her, very nicely, to give up her weapon. She flashed the proper ID; the soldier looked at her arm and her stack of photos, and waved her in. She had nothing against the soldiers, even though she felt that the City was the responsibility of the Police and not the Army. There was something reassuring about a big, burly, man with camouflage dress, an M-16, and the arrogant stride that said he knew how to use it.

The ride to JFK was a hike, and by the time she got there her shoulder was protesting the long trip. Her helmet insulated the sounds of people cursing and planes taking off pretty well, it also helped that she had an earpiece that ran on the police radio channels, picking up on the day-to-day chatter from dispatch. 

"Hey Pez!" Danny waved her over. They were temporarily parked by the Army loading area, a place taken over by the soldiers when they assumed responsibility for the airport security.

"Afternoon Detectives, what can I do you for?" a pleasant looking man, with a golden bar of rank on his shoulder met them at the gate.

"Got someone you need to be looking out for, mind if we come in?" the soldier nodded opened the gate. They were ushered into a hanger, where several off-duty grunts and some loose equipment were hanging around. They gave a copy of their suspect to the on-duty commander and posted one in the common area of the hanger.

Danny talked to the on-duty commander and Pez wandered out, over near the mouth of the hanger, and took in the sights. Planes flying in and out, whining jet engines, the cursing and shouts of workers as they serviced and prepped the planes for their turn-around trips. Suddenly memories assailed her…

_They'd been digging, trying to avoid the smoke of fires that had yet to be put out, dust and gravel and steel and paper all crunched under her feet. They were one of a line, an old fashioned bucket brigade. _

_On her right was a fire fighter, his name was Jack he'd been a rookie on one of his first runs, on her left was the Lieutenant of the Company, they'd run ladder trucks through the downtown. They were the only two left of their house. The rest were somewhere under all this rubble. They said they'd keep digging until they'd found them all. _

_People walked by them or near them, sometimes it was a Senator, or a head-of-state, President Bush, Senator Clinton, Tony Blair, Mayor Rudy and she couldn't count how many other famous or powerful people stopped to look, listen, or just breathe in the wonder of the powerful destruction._

_She didn't care, not all that much, she didn't register anything much beyond the bucket immediately to her front and the slick footing under her feet. Even through her thick police issue boots she could feel the heat, the burning fumes of the fire within. _

_"Heads up!" someone shouted._

_They dropped their buckets where they stood and pelted for the relative safety of the perimeter lines of the Site. Somewhere along the massive heap of detritus came a clanging ring of falling debris. They waited a few more seconds, to make sure that nothing else was coming down, then packed back up and moved back in. _

_They stopped, every once in a while, though time seemed to stretch and dilate while they were there. The smoke blocked out the sun, at least for the first few days, and even at night, the powerful lights kept the work alive. Water and food were passed out, down the line, and she ate and drank mechanically, ignoring the gritty dust that flavoured everything like chalk. _

_Suddenly, while she was seated, trying to ignore the pains in her legs and arms, she heard a deep whining sound. Everyone froze. It had been too long, and too much destruction had taken place for everyone not to recognise the sounds. Pez caught on in a few seconds._

_ It was a jet engine. _

_Reflexively she drew the battered pistol at her side, heedless of the ludicrousness of trying to ward off a jet airplane with a .45 calibre Colt. Everyone looked to the sky, trying to place the sound. _

_"There!" someone shouted, and everyone turned, praying it wasn't yet another doomed airliner._

_Far from being another airliner, Sara heard the whine of two Pratt and Whitney engines pumping out nearly 8,000 pounds of thrust behind the most beautiful sight in the world. A pair of F/A-18 Hornets screamed defiance over the broken remains of the World Trade Centre. _

_A ragged cheer downed out the whine of the turbines._

_"Well hot damn," said one of the shaggy, worn out, firemen, "that's the best thing I've seen all day."_

_Privately, she agreed. _

"Pez, Pez," Danny grabbed her good shoulder and gave it a shake.

"Yeah," she said faintly, still focused internally.

"You were there, weren't you?" asked a deep voice, Pez reflexively whirled around, hand automatically dropping to her gun. The speaker was a black man, with a deep chest and voice that begged him to say 'This is CNN'. 

"Maybe," she temporised, looking him over. His name patch said "Williams", over that was a parachute, with wings flaring over to join at the top, on his collar was stitched the insignia of two bars, a Captain. 

"I been there once, damndest thing I ever saw. I've been to proving grounds that didn't look that tore up. Y'all got _cajones," he looked at her with admiration. _

"Thanks," she muttered, breaking away from his gaze, slightly embarrassed "We try."

"Detective," he said mildly, "I have been an Army Ranger for twelve years, I served in the Gulf and in Somalia and I can tell you, personally, that never in my life have I ever seen something like that. If I'd have been there, I'd have run screaming for my momma an' not come back. I don't know how y'all did it." 

"We had to," she responded, trying to shrug, but hampered by her sling. 

"Yeah," he said, softy, "I know the feeling. Listen y'all ever need anything, give Captain Ronnie Williams a call, I can get men down there in no time flat." He stuck out his hand. She took it.

Danny and Jake stood by, kind of surprised, having not expected the Green Beret, all six-foot four of him, to look on their partner, all five foot five of her, with quite so much respect.  

"Thanks" she smiled, and was rewarded with a white toothed grin that made his mouth look like it was full of little sugar cubes.

She climbed back on her bike, Danny pulled up next to her in the car, they both headed out together; somehow he knew that her shoulder was bothering her more than normal. 

Something was bothering her now, but it had little to do with her shoulder. The Witchblade was too quiet. It was blocking out the pain of her broken shoulder like it usually did, but it was as if the vision had sucked something out of it. There usually wasn't a day that went by without it tugging her in some direction. She thought that time without that would be good, but instead it bothered her, like a fly in the back of her head. 

Usually after a vision, she couldn't get the stupid thing to shut up. Especially after one so powerful. She signed off of the psychic case, for the moment at least, and concentrated on some other things, the jumped/pushed prostitute from Vice and some gunshot victims. Grunt work, essentially.

She got home with a sigh, unlocking the deadbolt, knob, and other deadbolt, and switching on the light. 

"Nottingham!" she exclaimed and whipped out her gun, squeezing off one shot before remembering that this was not the time or the place to be shooting at things. 

"Lady Sara," he, for the first time in their aquaintance, looked a little shaken up; he probably hadn't expected her to take a pot-shot at him when she came home. He bowed his head, not looking her in the face. 

"Sit down damnit," she had her gun still drawn, but left the round unchambered, no need to tempt fate again, "Sit down, stop bowing, and tell me what in the name of God you're doing here, before I really get ticked off." 

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	8. E doesn't Equal Mc Squared

Disclaimer: 

I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, I intend no monetary gain off of this, and don't wish any kind of copyright infringement on Top Cow production or TNT or whomever.

In honour of the officers of the NYPD who served and protected their last on 9-11-01

_Chapter Eight_

"Yes, Lady" Ian sat, meekly, and his eyes never wavered from the barrel of the gun pointed at his nose. He felt the heat of the bullet rolling in his palm, a tangible reminder of Lady Sara's attempt on his life. 

"I told you to quit calling me that" said irritably, kicking off her boots. "I'm not your kind of kind of lady." 

'But you are' quivered on the tip of his tongue, but Ian swallowed it. God she was beautiful when she was angry. Her green eyes snapped fire and she moved like a lithe, dangerous lioness as she set her formidable glare on the object of her wrath. 

"What are you doing here?" she questioned again, coming closer, but not wavering the tip of her gun. He could smell her presence, the sharp, sweet aroma of woman and oiled steel. 

"The Witchblade granted you a vision," he said, "It confuses you."

"That's the understatement of the year," she replied, "You know what it's about."

"Yes Lady," 

"You know what it means."

"Yes Lady,"

"Then start talking," She sat on the opposite side of the coffee table, "and remember that I'm a little short on patience tonight. Short, sweet, and to the point, Nottingham."

"The vision was about pretenders to the Witchblade, was it not?" he asked, wanting to clarify this before he got himself shot at. Again. 

"Yes," she said impatiently.

"Then I believe that the Witchblade is acting precognitive. It knows or perhaps suspects that a pretender will make an attempt on the Blade," he was sweating, a curious sensation, he didn't usually become nervous when addressing the Lady Sara. 

"When?" she demanded.

"I don't know, perhaps recently," he responded honestly.

"Who?" she asked again, shaking the gun in his general direction.

"Someone," he shrugged, "A pretender. Possibly someone you know," 

"I coulda told you that," she stood up again, restlessly, "Fat lot of good this is,"

She bent down to pick up the shell casing, which had been ejected when she fired her gun. Ian got a full view of her very muscular posterior. Surprisingly another unusual sensation assaulted him, one he was only slightly more familiar with. It had occurred on another occasion, when he had been treated to an uninterrupted view of her posterior. It was desire, a sensation he'd felt but never indulged. 

For the first time since his adolescence he was now tempted to indulge.

Wordlessly he placed the bullet he'd caught on the glass tabletop, it clicked softly. She turned around and looked, smiling wryly at his chutzpah. She picked up the bullet Ian caught in his bare palm.

"Well the super-ninja struck again," she examined it, noting that it was still warm, "nicely done." 

"Thank you Lady," he bowed his head.

"Damn it Nottingham, didn't I tell you to quit calling me that, and stop it you're making me feel like some weird…just stop it." She unbuckled her gun belt and threw it on the kitchen counter, heedless of the delicate granite. 

"Yes…Sara." He examined the apartment. 

Much of his decoration was gone, the expensive antique furniture and stylish Turkish rug had also vanished. In their stead's there was a sturdy sofa, overstuffed, and covered in soft corduroy. She had also acquired several hardback chairs, replacing the leather wingbacks, a swivelling barstool for the kitchen. The oil paintings also seemed to disappear, all but one, a rendering of the city skyline at sunset Ian had enjoyed for the contrast and the colours. She replaced the large rug with several smaller ones, brightly coloured, in fact the whole area was much brighter, with less leather and more cloth. 

"You have re-decorated," he observed, trying to spark up a conversation that did not involve weapons.

"Yeah, sorry, but it just wasn't my cup of tea, I don't do antiques or …" her voice was muffled in the freezer, "Hey, you want a brown lump or a grey one?" 

"Brown," he supplied, surprised that she could threaten his life in one minute and offer him dinner in the next.  

"Here," she tossed him a frozen lump of food, "You're the one breaking and entering. You may as well make yourself useful." 

"Yes, La…Sara" he got up, moving swiftly, and she took the seat he had just vacated, yawning and shuttering her eyes. He found a pan, probably unused since he bought it, and placed the solid lump of icy beef in the pan to thaw. 

"Y'know it's quicker if you nuke it," she pointed to the microwave, not one of his acquisitions, and he suppressed a shudder. Microwaved food was not something he would willingly eat. There was something unnatural about an empty box that fried things.  

"I will cook, Sara," he turned back to the burner and adjusted the heat needlessly. He could hear her shaking her head, her eyes still burning a hole in his back. She didn't trust him, he'd bet his right hand that the 45 calibre Colt automatic was within arm's reach. How unfortunate, trust was essential. 

"What do you want, Nottingham?" she asked him, seemingly puzzled.

"What can I do?" he asked back, not taking his eyes of the thawing lump of steak.

"Stop that" she ordered.

"Stop what?" he asked.

"Being cryptic," she shifted; he could hear the soft 'tick' of her gun being lifted off the glass table top. "I'm getting tired of not having a straight answer"

"Sometimes there are no 'straight answers' Sara," he observed, "A situation I believe you are well aware."

"Why is the Wichblade ignoring me?" she asked, impatient for answers.

"Is it?" he countered back, searching her face. "Or do you merely think it is?"

"What's it up to, what's it doing, and damn it, why the hell won't you answer me?"

"I have not all the answers, Sara, though I'm sure you're well aware of that."

"Can the crap, Nottingham, what do you want from me?" 

"I should think that's obvious," he turned, facing her, "Especially after our little encounter in Mr. Bowman's shower stall"

"Hey" she jumped off the sofa, sliding another round into the chamber of her weapon, "I was out of it, Ok? It's not right to take advantage of a situation like that. I don't want to hear it."

"You're a lioness, Sara, and very remarkable woman, as beautiful as a sunset and as fierce as the strongest warrior. You bear a talisman of feminine power that few men could live with without being overshadowed by. I know of one such man." He stepped closer so that she could not, even if she tried, escape his meaning. 

"Touching," she cocked her pistol, pointing at his chest, "You're trying to seduce me, Nottingham, and it's not working. There's nothing between us. You, me, no – get it?"

"Are you sure about that Sara?" he continued to step closer, "I who know your every move, I who know who you truly are, I who can understand in the way no other man could. Are you truly sure that there is nothing between us?"    

"Positive," she took up a defensive posture, holding her pistol in a two handed Weaver grip, "Get out of my home"

"I'm never far, Sara, I'm always near. Always ready for you. Always," He reached out to stroke her cheek and she stepped back, levelling her weapon. "Do you really think that will stop me, Sara?"

"Even a mad dog will stop if you put a bullet in his head," she hissed angrily, "You wanna try me? I need some new wallpaper."

He did nothing but smile, and walk to the window, his most comfortable point of egress, and leaping out, heedless of her gasp. It was a dramatic exit, making as if he fell towards the street, but in actuality he swung upwards and landed silently on the fire escape a level up. He watched her poke her head out of the window, looking downwards, and then locking it securely behind her, as if that could keep him away.  

His hands remembered their journey across her prone form; she was warm and soft, even dusty and sweaty as she had been. Irons had never allowed him a woman, feeling the excess sexual energy would be better put to use in a productive fashion. Bowman, '_Gabriel', his mind reminded him, had been shaking, barely able to control his lust. _

His unrequited infatuation with Sara had been painfully obvious, even to one as relatively unschooled as Ian in the depths of desire. Ian himself had required every ounce of self control to keep his hands from wandering away from their self-appointed task. The scar from the Periculum had been on her left breast, he could not help himself from exploring the ridges of the same scarring that his father had borne in his abortive attempt to master a power not his own.   

  He heard the clang of the pan and the scathing hiss of meat being put to fry. It appeared Sara was taking out her frustration with him on her defenceless sirloin. Better it than him, he shrugged. He didn't anticipate her shooting at him, the harsh burn of the bullet left a welt on his palm that he now looked at soberly. 

It was dangerous to underestimate the Wielder of the Witchblade. Another split second of response time and it'd have buried itself in his chest instead of being caught by his hands. He'd already seen her in action with the Witchblade itself, as she put a permanent stop to Irons. Perhaps a new set of action was required, a new angle, another way to approach her. 

This required thought.

In her apartment Sara was fuming, at herself, again, for shooting at Ian the second she walked in her apartment. Firing off a Colt 45 in her living room was not the way to endear oneself to one's neighbours. Besides, how much good had it done?

"Damn, muscle bound, ham-handed, stalking, FREAK!" she shouted at her stovetop, "What does he think he's trying to accomplish?"

'He's trying to mess with your head,' the sensible voice in her head chimed back, 'and he seems to be doing a pretty good job of it too.' 

"RRRRGGGH" she stabbed the steaks, one handed, with a good deal more force than was needed, and flipped them over to thaw on the other side. 

The phone rang.

"This better be good" she growled, without preamble.

There was along pause, then a rather amused voice asked "Long day at the office?" 

"Not in a good mood, Gabriel. Spit it out or shut it," She ordered. 

"Ok," he agreed, rather quickly, "I was thinking about the last vision, y'know, the one you had at my place? I think, I'm not sure, but the Witchblade's been precognitive before hasn't it? What if this is like some kind of precog warning, like a pretender is in the near future. Maybe it's warning you to, like, be on guard or something." 

She took a very deep breath, and then let it out slowly. Somehow, someway, somewhere, there had to be a God. She could not imagine this happening by coincidence. There was a deity sitting up there in some sanity-be-damned cloud city with a vat of bourbon and a drafting board for her life. At this point she wasn't sure if she'd offer God another round or strangle him. 

"Uh…chief?" Gabriel asked, reminding her that he was still on the line. 

"You are a wonderful human being, you know that Gabriel." She sighed, "Guess who just jumped out my window after delivering approximately the same speech only after I shot at him and threatened to plaster my living room with his remains."

"Mr. Nottingham, I presume."

"Yup," she retrieved some garlic and olive oil from the pantry, drizzling them over her steaks, "I don't know whether to run screaming through the streets or go 'postal' with my .45."

"Y'know, on a scale of one to ten, 'postal' would be bad." Gabriel pointed out, and suddenly he processed what she said. "Wait a minute, you shot him?" 

"At him," she clarified, "He moved"    

"You missed?" he asked, incredulous.

"No," she grumbled, "He's quick."  

"He might have some good moves, but there's nobody born that can out move a bullet." Gabriel said.

"You mind telling that to him?" she asked. "I don't think he read the book on physics. Come to think of it neither did the Witchblade." 

"E doesn't equal mc squared?"

"Not in this cop's life." She grumbled. 

"Way to go…Einstein."  

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	9. Flashback

Disclaimer: 

I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, I intend no monetary gain off of this, and don't wish any kind of copyright infringement on Top Cow production or TNT or whomever.

A/N: This probably deserves a higher rating than PG-13 for some graphic descriptions and swearing. Be warned.

In honour of the officers of the NYPD who served and protected their last on 9-11-01

_Chapter Nine_

"Please?" Sara begged.

"Do you have any idea how compromised my medical reputation would be if I wrote that you were fit for duty? I'd get laughed out of the board." Leigh put her hands on her hips, firmly denying the determined Detective. 

"I'm fine, honestly!" Sara protested. "And I'm going nuts from the paperwork."

"Then go nuts!" Leigh threw up her hands, "If it's not one thing then it's the other. I swear if everyone was as eager to work as you and Danny, the world would be a much better place."

"Leigh!" Sara whined, "Please?"

"NO!" she shouted, "Absolutely not. You just had major orthopaedic surgery, not only am I not an orthopaedic surgeon I'm not going to declare you fit!"

"But I'm fine, really, look," Sara, in the privacy of the living room, pulled off her jacket and black cable knit sweater. 

"Oh my God!" Leigh breathed, far from exaggerating her health, Sara was correct. The bruising had faded to almost nothing, the incision wounds had healed completely, and the muscles and ligaments looked to be in the right places. "You… you're…that's not possible!!"

"Can I go back to fieldwork? Please?" 

Leigh sat down on the sofa with a thump as her knees gave way to shock. Sara stood in front of her, wearing her sleeveless undershirt. 

"Just one little note, 'Sara Pezzini is medically fit for duty', that's all."

"Sara Pezzini is going to sit her butt down and explain herself. I know for a fact that you completely disjointed your shoulder, tore off the entire rotator cuff, and broke at least three bones, including your collarbone. There is no way in heaven you could heal this quickly. It's not possible. Not physically possible." Leigh looked as white as a sheet. 

'Oops' Sara thought, not realising the extent of the damage, and therefore the miracle of the healing. 

"You had major surgery a week and a half ago. At the very most, you might be able to move it, a little, without pain." Leigh went wide eyed, "Sara what's going on?" 

'Uh oh' Sara's mind sped, she knew a blasé 'I got good bones' would not fly past Leigh. If left unsatisfied, she'd go to Danny and he'd really start in on Pez. 

"Sara?"

"Look, Leigh, there's a lot of…impossible stuff going on right now. I can't explain. It's just…strange, Ok? I'm fit for duty, I promise you." Sara pleaded with her eyes, "Please? Have I ever lied to you?"      

Leigh shook her head, still in a state of disbelief, she'd known Pez forever, Danny had been Pez's partner long before he was her husband. The woman was hard edged, gruff, and blunt, but if there was one thing she could count on it was her honesty. 

She moved her hand, motioning Sara to bend down, and Leigh ran her hands along Sara's left shoulder. She had a boxer's body, heavily muscled torso and arms, with strong, sturdy legs. The muscles should of at least atrophied from being confined, unmoving, to a cast, but they were as lean and hard as they'd ever been. 

"I guess this one I won't be writing up for the New England Journal of Medicine" Leigh said shakily, "They wouldn't believe me anyhow."

"Thanks" Sara popped back up, "I appreciate it."

"Don't mention it," Leigh responded, "Please." 

She watched as Sara pulled the sweater back over her head. Sara wasn't graceful, not like Mija, who had a budding Broadway career, or like Danny, whose muscles were loose from endless Kung Fu training, but there was a certain economy of movement, a brusque efficiency, which was as forthright and honest as the woman herself. She didn't try to fake what she didn't have, nor did she waste any energy when she didn't have to.

"I'm going to give you a prescription, two of them actually, one for the pain" she glared at Sara before the other could protest that she didn't need it, "and one to clean out any infection that's left."    

"Ok," Sara agreed, but Leigh had a feeling that she would have agreed to anything as long as she got the note.

"Be careful, Sara," Leigh, said, worried, not just because they were friends, but because she knew Danny, and he wouldn't be fit to live with if she got herself injured again. 

He'd damn near had a breakdown when it appeared as though she'd not made it through the Day. If she'd had a little less confidence in Danny, or a little less trust of Sara, she'd have suspected that there was something more than 'just partners' going on between them. He'd been distraught. Until he'd frantically caught her working with a group of fire-fighters, then the whole Woo family, right down to the little one, breathed a sigh of relief. 

Leigh admired Sara, a lot of women in her position would be resentful of the 'other woman' in Danny's life. It would be natural. Sara never took advantage, though, she never tried to insinuate herself where she didn't feel she belonged. She didn't try to 'mother' the kids; she didn't get involved in the daily squabbles over whose turn it was to cook. They weren't friends in the pedicure-and-chick-flick sense, but there was a mutual respect. She helped a bunch with 'Managing Mija' giving the teenager an outlet that Leigh was positively sure wouldn't lead her astray.  

It was like having a sister right her own little backyard. 

For her own part, Sara was giddy with finally getting permission for fieldwork, instead of the grunt labour that Dante had been gleefully dumping on her. There was one thing she knew Danny had been putting off until she could be there. 

Dante wasn't pleased at her return to active status, he scowled and blustered over the Doctor's note, she wouldn't have put it past him to figure out it was Danny's wife who signed out on her fitness. She could see the smoke coming out of Dante's ears as the little hamster wore the exercise wheel down to a nub thinking of some semi-legitimate excuse to hold her back from real duty. 

Not that there was one, anyhow.  

They'd got a search warrant for Dominique's Den, Sara had the keys, and they needed to locate her, preferably now. Dante shouted that loudly enough that the entire precinct was cracking out the cotton balls and updating the office pool of 'how-long-till-one-of-them-cracks-and-kills-the-other'. 

"NYPD homicide," Sara banged on the door, to the psychic's office, not really expecting anyone to answer, but feeling the need to pound on something. "We have a Warrant. Open up," she banged loudly again, then put the keys in the lock and opened the door. 

"Whew," Jake wrinkled his nose, "Remind me not to buy incense. What did she buy it by, the gallon?" 

"Damn," Sara coughed; she must have left it burning while they'd been out. "Eucalyptus, ugh" 

"Alright people, let's get busy." Jake commanded, they'd been allowed one extra uniformed officer and a crime scene investigator to handle this one. 

Slowly they picked through the underground 'office'. They found a lot of Tarot cards, different 'hidden' caches of matches, coloured lights, a hidden set of speakers, and several 'ghostly apparitions'. There were financial records, several cabinets of 'client' files, and a large wardrobe. 

"Tag the computer and the cabinets," Sara ordered, "Two to one that where's she's gone is in there somewhere."  

"Hey, Pez, look," Jake slid his hands over a crack in the plaster of the back room, the one with the files, "I think it's hollow."

She thought for a second, about the floor plans for the grocery above stairs, mentally calculating the square footage. "According to the architect, there's room for about another three to five feet of space."

"Hey Bill," Jake called, "C'mere. There's a room somewhere back here, can you get a mallet or something and bust through?" 

"Sure boss," Bill the crime scene analyst shrugged and fetched a large sledgehammer from his van. The plaster lasted about two seconds before caving in on itself. 

"Holy Mother of God," Pez swore.

The back of the back room was covered in arcane writings, weird symbols, there was an altar, set into the wall, covered in crushed velvet and, was that a human skull? There were candles, black, red, purple, some half burnt and others with symbols carved into the shafts. There were icons, idols, and even, Sara picked off some plaster, a voodoo doll. Of her, to be precise, complete with red cashmere sweater, black leather jacket, hair, badge, jeans, and Witchblade. 

"Uh, Pez," Jake said shakily, "What's going on here?" 

"It's a set-up" she hissed, "It was a fucking set-up!" 

"What was," asked Jake, puzzled.

"This," Sara shouted, flinging her arms open, "She didn't spot Gallo on the damn yacht, she said that to make me interested. He didn't order her to shoot that guy, she did it herself, to get me here. She wanted me to be here, but…she didn't think we'd arrest her. Not yet. She thought she'd have enough time. Damn!" 

"No offence, Pez, but what would she want you for? You're just a cop." 

She waved off his comment; she knew damn well why someone would want to try and control her. "We need to find her. Now. Before she's got time to build another one of these…things." 

"Let's get to work," Jake agreed, they carried out box after box of confiscated stuff, cabinets, computers, papers, anything that they thought they might conceivably need. They put it in the CSI van; Bill would drive it back to the lab and get everything tested out. 

They were almost done when a pinging sound glanced off of one of the lamp-posts near Sara's head. 

"Duck!" she shouted, as the pinging got louder. Someone was taking pot-shots at the partners with a silenced rifle. As Sara cowered down under the van, she was willing to bet her badge that the gun that was shooting at her now was identical to the one that had offed Dantoni. 

The windshield on the van shattered. The spray of broken glass snapped something inside her head. She could feel her body, tensing up and curling into a fetal position. Then the memory assuaged her. 

_"Pezzini, homicide, where do you need me?" she'd asked the fire chief on site. _

_He'd motioned with a jerk of his head._

_"Casualties!__ Get them outta heah! Clear up this traffic shit. We need to get men up there. You do that Pezzini?" he looked up at the building. _

_As the flames poured out of the building, they could hear the whole thing groaning like a sick puppy. Things flew down shattering like glass along the pavement. Smoking debris, steel beams, glass, everything made that same shattering sound.   _

_Unless they were people.__ Humans made an entirely different sound when impacting concrete at the terminal velocity of 125 m.p.h. It sounded like a splitting watermelon. Every few minutes, the people in the parking lot had to dodge the squelching impacts.    _

_"C'mon people. MOVE! Get you butts in gear. Let's go!" she shouted, helping a bunch of fire-fighters cart wounded to the emergency triage set up in the parking lot. She created an 'in' station and an 'out' station, one for the living and one for the not-so-living. _

_Something shattered; they ducked as a rain of hot glass spread over the lot. Sara pitched her body over the prone form of a middle-aged man, bleeding from a concussion and missing a limb. There were dozens, if not a hundred people there, all in various states of injury._

_ The ambulances were screaming into the lot to load people and get them out. Sara grabbed a day-glow orange vest and made like a traffic cop, shouting instead of using a whistle._

_"Oh Shit," she looked up just as the South tower finally gave up its valiant effort to remain upright. Everything blasted outwards, the fire-trucks the ambulances, the people, the steel, everything just shattered._

_It seemed as if it was moving in slow motion, thanks to the Witchblade, she ducked behind an ambulance as the waves of concussion and debris impacted her body. _

_She woke up an interminable amount of time later, having punched through the wall of the ambulance and taken shelter inside. The people, the EMT's and the patient, weren't as lucky as she. Numbly she registered that she was buried, alive. _

_The Witchcblade screamed in defiance, lighting up the dim interior of the buried rubble. No way in this world would ol'Witchy let herself get caught with her pants down, no sir, not the Witchblade. Sara sliced through burning steel, crushed concrete and other things she didn't stop to examine, finally standing on the top of a small mound of rubbish that had banked around the prone ambulance.  _

_"Shit," she was shouting, "Shit, shit, shit!" _

_There was nothing left of the __South__Twin__Tower__._

"Pez! Pez! Pez! Are you hit? Pez! ARE YOU HIT?" Jake was shouting, shaking her, trying to get a reaction out of his partner. He had a weapon drawn, absently she wondered why, but then reality came flooding back to her. 

"No!" She moved out of her half hidden position, under the van, still shaking like a leaf, "No I'm fine."

"Jesus Christ, Pez, don't do that to me!" before she could protest he pulled her into a firm hug, squeezing her so hard her ribs protested, "Scared the bejesus out of me."

"What happened?" she asked, still kind of confused from the flashback.

"Some asshole took a few pot-shots at us, that's all," Jake sounded breathless, "Are you sure you're ok? You spaced out there for a while." 

"Yeah," she shook her head, trying to clear out the old memory, "Just a… little flashback. I think it was the glass." 

"Flashback?" he sounded puzzled, but then it dawned on him, exactly to what she was flashing back. "Oh"

"Yeah, oh" Sara sat on the running board of the van, knees still weak from the impact, "Gimme a minute" 

"OK," he agreed, helping Bill finish loading the van. Larry, the plainclothes officer puffed up, he'd gone to try and catch the pot-shooter. It hadn't worked. What seemed like seconds flew by, and Jake was shaking her arm to tell her it was time to go.  

Numbly she followed him to the precinct. 

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	10. Good Morning Beautiful

Disclaimer: 

I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, I intend no monetary gain off of this, and don't wish any kind of copyright infringement on Top Cow production or TNT or whomever.

In honour of the officers of the NYPD who served and protected their last on 9-11-01

_Chapter Ten _

Gabriel woke up quite happy and content, thank you very kindly. He was in his favourite and most appealing position: Sara's arms. Not in her arms, exactly, she had a tendency to sprawl, but she had one leg wrapped around him, both arms somewhere nearby, and her head was pillowed on his shoulder. 

It was odd, really. She was such a private person. She always preserved that three feet of personal space. But not here. Not while she was sleeping. Even when she'd been too tired to cry her unconscious body drifted itself to him and wrapped up, like a blanket. 

Not that he minded, he didn't think there was a red blooded man on the planet who would mind. The only downside was that parts of him were a little more 'awake' than others, a sad and unfortunate condition, that he suffered through half the time when she tugged him down to do his 'pillow duty'. Not that he minded it either.

She called him, nearing midnight, she'd only said his name into the receiver, but that was all he needed to hear. She had 'that' tone in her voice. The tone that said: I'm-scared-and-I'm-too-proud-to-say-it-but-could-you-come-over-anyhow. He didn't really want to argue with 'that' tone. She used it so infrequently. He was at her place in a heartbeat.  

He grunted and moved her…arm? Was that her arm? Yeah, her arm. Off of his wrist and winced as the blood began to flow back into the hand. Then he froze. 

He wasn't the only man in her bedroom that morning. 

Standing next to the window, as though he owned it, was Ian Nottingham. A very unhappy Ian Nottingham. One could even call it upset, if one was so inclined. The bad part here was that an upset Ian Nottingham usually led to someone's head breaking in. From the look the other man was giving him, Gabriel suspected his head had made the ready target list. 

There wasn't much Gabriel could do about it, he was very effectively pinned down by Sara. Even if he hadn't been, he didn't delude himself be thinking that he could put up half a fight against an angry Nottingham. 

They stared at each other, both wishing hellfire and damnation on their counterpart, until Ian took one giant step forwards.

"Good morning, Mr. Bowman." He said with a dry, humourless smile.

"Uh…hi,"

"Are you quite comfortable?"

"Uh, yeah, actually," Gabriel made a show of 'adjusting' Sara's arm. If he was going to die he might as well go out kicking. There was no way he could take him on mano-a-mano but there were other ways to hurt a man. 

Unfortunately it worked. Ian growled, honest-to-God growled, and took another, more aggressive, step forwards. It looked as though he was going to pull something out of his Technicolor-Dream-Coat, but then the Witchblade, that annoying tin-pot piece of metal on Sara's wrist, decided to make her will known to the general population of Sara's bedroom. 

It flew out, into the gauntlet form. The metal was unnaturally warm on Gabriel's chest. Someone was angry. Gabriel could almost fancy he heard her grumbling at having to wake up for this. The inset jewel flared, lighting the loft bedroom a dull orangey colour.

Ian stopped in his tracks, automatically dropping his head and moving to 'parade rest' at the apparition. He'd been trained by Irons to revere the Witchblade like nothing else. Her will was his, even if he disagreed with her actions. That went double for the Wielder; although he considered it his duty to try and 'counsel' her to what he believed was the most sensible course of action. Sensible for Ian Nottingham was not, however, the same 'sensible' for Sara Pezzini. They clashed.

Gabriel, on the other hand, had a healthy respect for the Witchblade's occasional 'moments', but didn't treat her like her words were the gospel truth. He could really care less what the Witchblade thought it wanted to do. Sara was the Wielder, she made her own decisions, and that was the way it was. Period. Resultantly, they got along.  

They both stared at the blade, getting the distinct impression that she wasn't all that happy with the confrontation at the moment. Ian started, and then growled again, glaring not at Gabriel but at the Witchblade. He had a strong suspicion that the 'blade was telling Ian off in no uncertain terms. Ian glared once more at Gabriel, promising retribution in many and various unpleasant ways, and then stalked off, back out the window and down the fire escape. 

Thinking that the Witchblade had said her piece, Gabriel tried to shift out from under Sara and put a start to the day. They had a routine, he'd get up first, fix the coffee and whatever food he deemed necessary. She'd shower, and then they'd switch, him in the shower and her fetching the paper or checking the TV news for emergencies. It was all done silently, a habit formed from time spent closeted together while her apartment was out of commission.  

The Witchblade was not finished. Not yet. She snaked a tendril of metal out to snare his wrist, clamping down strongly. He looked at it, a little panicked, and then it took him under. 

_Thunk__!! The cold metal of an axe ringing down on the headsman's stump – heads rolling loud cries "BURN THE WITCH! BURN THE WITCH" _

_A woman, dressed in rags, was carried out to the middle of the platform. It was Sara, or a woman who looked exactly like her. Gabriel tried to cry out, tired to move, tried to do something to prevent the incendiary light from reaching the stack of straw underneath her feet. _

_He was trapped, he looked at his surroundings, he was tied up, he was held, bound and gagged, forced to watch as the woman he loved, had made love to, had wanted by his side forever, was slowly put to torch. _

_His eyes blurred, he wanted to turn away, but couldn't pull his eyes away from the scene. He couldn't watch but he couldn't stop watching._

_When they led him to the gallows to share his lover's fate, all he felt was relief that the agony was over._

He blinked back to earth, crying, tears running down his cheeks, well hell. He glared at the metal bracelet that was now holding him hostage while its Wielder slept peacefully on. 

"I get it, Ok! I get the point!" he said angrily, out loud. The tendril let go of him, sliding back to its original form. 

Gabriel tried to rub his wrist, but couldn't quite reach. That was freaky. If that was what Sara went through every time she had a vision he now understood a whole lot better how Wielders could go insane. It was like a vice was squeezing his head, mashing out all his brains and replacing them with the feelings and emotions of the nameless, faceless man who'd shared his lover's fate, too many years ago to count. 

Sara stirred; it had been too much to hope for that she would sleep through the fanfare of the morning. She didn't wake up easily, her mind fighting the unconsciousness, until it finally prevailed and she opened her eyes. 

"Hey"

"Mmmfffpphh" was her response, and she buried her head right back into his collar.   

   He shifted, now with her awake they could achieve a position where none of their respective body parts were deprived of life-giving blood. She snuffled and grunted and muttered and stretched but she eventually woke enough that she could sleepily smile at him. 

His heart stopped when she gave him 'that' sleepy smile, the one that said 'thanks' and 'good morning' and 'it's a damn wonderful day to be alive' and everything else all at the same time. 

She fiddled absently, with one of the buttons on his shirt. He hadn't bothered taking it off, just kicking off his shoes before crawling in under the pre-warmed blanket. She was frowning now, not a good sign, it meant she had something important on her mind, something unpleasantly important. That was another expression of hers that he was all too familiar with.

"What's wrong?" he asked, breaking the code of silence that they usually spent the morning observing. 

"Huh? ... Wrong? No, well, not really wrong per se, just…" she trailed off, absently poking his buttons in the buttonhole one way and through backwards on the opposite side, "You don't…mind this do you?"

He could feel his jaw going agape. Him? Mind? How the hell could she think that? After all the nights she'd called him back into his bedroom to be with her, tucked in under his ear, just in the right hollow between his neck and shoulder. It was perfection. Why the hell would he mind? 

"Gabriel?" she asked, sounding a little more insistent and worried. 

"Mind!" he spluttered, "How the hell did you come up with that? What…? I…" he spluttered, trying to find words to express himself. It wasn't working too well; he could see Sara's withdrawal almost immediately. Desperate, he did the only thing his shorted-out mind could fathom.  

He kissed her. 

She froze, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming Mack truck. Then something incredible happened. She kissed him back. Slowly, at first, then more and more insistently until they were locked in a heated embrace. Gasping he was the first to break it up, wondering how the hell this ever could happen to him.

Apparently Sara was wondering the same thing; she pulled off of his chest with something akin to shock, breathing heavily. 

_Hate to leave it here, but I busted up my hand working out and won't be able to type for about a week. Sorry guys, I'll work on it, I promise. Review Please: I wrote 1,696 words, I think a few back aren't unwarranted.       _


	11. Tired

Disclaimer: 

I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, I intend no monetary gain off of this, and don't wish any kind of copyright infringement on Top Cow production or TNT or whomever.

In honour of the officers of the NYPD who served and protected their last on 9-11-01

_A/N Sorry about the delay, I dislocated two knuckles and haven't been able to type well (or type at all)_

Chapter Eleven

"Pez…PEZ!" 

"Huh?!" Sara started, having dazed off into another one of her, seemingly random, brown studies. 

"Earth to Pezzini, come in Pez. Where the hell did you go?" Danny asked, concerned. 

She hurried to reassure him, not wanting him to think she was flashing back again. "I'm fine Danny, really, my mind's just wandering." 

After the little incident with Jake and the shattering glass, Danny had been treating her with kid gloves, it was nice that he cared, but the constant watching got a little annoying after a while. Especially since her mind was wandering considerably since last week. 

Gabriel kissed her. Her mind hadn't quite wrapped itself around that concept yet, although they'd spent a considerable amount of time in that position. Her mind was wandering now because she kept remembering his touch at the strangest moments. Like while they were trying to hack into the psycho psychic's computer.   Though she supposed that when she though of computers she thought of Gabriel and lately when she thought of Gabriel her mind went straight to the gutter. 

Not that it was a bad thing. Just not at work.

"You know we're not going to get anything from this." The technician, a mousy looking kind of guy, pushed back from his chair. "She cleaned this out good."

"C'mon," Pez cajoled, "You can never really erase a hard drive, there's got to be something."

"Nope, sorry Detective, there's nothing I can do." He linked his hands behind his hair and rubbed the bridge of his nose, where the glasses touched.  

"Crap!" she swore, and put her hands on her hips, pacing back and forth trying to figure something out. 

Gabriel told her once, while they were talking, that unless the hardware was actually removed and destroyed, that there was still information on the disc. It was up to the skill level of the "programmer", or hacker, to find the information. He once bragged that he'd bought his first computer used, from his father's business, and hacked into his Dad's mainframe using the 'deleted' network connections. That was a quality erasure too, not a cheap procedure.  

Frustrated she shoved a thumb under her gun belt, slicing her finger open on the case for her cell phone. Swearing, she stuck the offending extremity into her mouth, trying to staunch the bleeding.

 Cell phone. Phone call. Modem. Computer. Gabriel. She could call him in here. He could get something off this damn uncooperative lump of plastic and sand. She could also see him again before the end of her shift, a not so incidental benefit of calling him in to the office.  That decided it. She whipped out her cell and hit #-6-7, her speed dial code for Gabriel. 

 "Talismaniacs, Gabriel Bowman" his voice was the impersonal, businesslike tone used around the world. 

"Hey" she said softly.

"Sara!" he exclaimed, sounding very pleasantly surprised, "What's wrong?" 

"I got a computer problem," she clarified, "I need a hacker."

"Uh…is this like, personal or business?" he asked. 

"Business," she reassured him, though it touched her that he'd hack for her on a personal level as well as a professional one. 

"Cool," he sounded intrigued, "What's up?"

"I got a computer and no person. I need to find the person and I got no hard drive. Our techie can't anything off of if, but…"

"Hey," the 'techie' protested, "The damn thing's deleted!" 

She ignored him and blithely continued, "I need a nerd. Can you do it?" 

"He said it's deleted right, not destroyed?" Gabriel asked.

"Yeah," she chanced a glace at the now-fuming techie, and read off the make and model. "It's a Dell, desktop, um…4400. Lots of memory cards, primitive graphics, no speakers, I think…yeah, that's it."

"Ok, be there in a few." He paused, "Missed you."

"Yeah me too," she said softly, slightly embarrassed, not at the admission, but at making the admission in mixed company. 

"Bowman?" asked Danny after she hung up. God did he know her. Too well sometimes.

"Gabriel, yeah, he said he can do it," She didn't meet Danny's eyes, but she knew damn well that he knew that there was more than 'business' between them.

"Well I wish this 'Bowman' fellow luck," spat the techie, "There's nothing here." He packed up his beat up soft-briefcase and stalked out of their office, where the computer had been set up, in a huff.

"That was smooth," Danny commented, "Pissed him off good" 

"We need the information," Sara slumped in her seat and out her boots up on the desk, "He can't get it to us."

"Yeah, I bet that's it," Danny teased, "Or do you just want to show off your 'nerd'?"

Her boots slipped off the desktop, slamming into the floor, "Hey now Danny, I don't want to hear it, OK?"

"So you are," he observed, sliding up his chair next to her desk. "Tell"

"No," she sat up and crossed to the furthest point of the room possible, "No damn way." 

"C'mon," Danny protested, "You always tell. Besides it's been too long since you've had 'a man', though Gabriel, y'know, sounds kinda like cradle robbing to me." He teased.

"You're dead," she pointed her finger at him, "dead. D-E-A-D" 

"Right," Danny rolled away on his chair, smiling. Just then, Jake walked in, carrying a folder with a few pages in it.

"Hey Pez," he hailed, "Vicky got a post-mortem on the floater, she said it's important."

"Thank you, Jake," Sara smiled sweetly, glaring at Danny as she walked by. 

She followed Jake to the examiner's room, as far from anyone with a working nasal system as possible. It got kind of whiffy near there, especially in the summer.  

"Hey," greeted Vicky, "About time I saw you, where the hell you been?" 

"Busy," Sara replied, wincing internally as she remembered her missed meetings with Vicky because of Gabriel's 'distractions'. 

"Well not with this one," she unzipped the body bag, letting _eau de corpse waft through the room. _

Jake, the rookie, winced and wrinkled his nose. He fetched a mask, coated with Vicks Vapo Rub to try and kill the stench. Vicky was a coroner; she was inured to all but the worst smells. Sara was too, but for a different reason entirely. Burnt was much more potent than soggy, especially over a long period of time. After working on the Site Sara could breathe just about anything, concrete dust, paper particles, ash, and yes, the odor of a lot of bodies. 

"Open and shut, at least from a coroner's perspective. Wet drowning. Lungs filled with water and respiration stops due to anoxia. Do I get a prize?" Vicky pushed the bag far enough back so they could see that it was indeed open and shut.

"I'm free Friday night" Jake offered, an option Vicky wrinkled her nose at.

"I'd rather go with him," she motioned to the truly nasty looking body on the slab. 

"Ouch, McCarty, bad, bad, bad. Don't you know better than to hit on the live ones? I'm sure Vicky could set you up with a suitable cadaver." Sara exaggeratedly winced and winked at Vicky.     

  "Cute" Jake glared at Sara. She knew damn well he was trying to fish for a date with Vicky. "Anything else?"

"Your computer friend is here, he's trying to find the doorknob."

"Oh, Gabriel," Sara absently pushed open the door. It opened backwards from most doors, the maintenance people put it on wrong. Unless you'd been there before you'd never know. 

"Oh God!" he exclaimed after walking in and bee-lined back out, dropping to his knees at Vicky's desk. 

"Gabriel!" Sara exclaimed, rushing after him. 

"Oh God," he moaned again, retching into the trashcan, "How the hell can you stand that?" 

"What?" she asked. 

"That smell, the…" he paused to drop his head back into the trashcan, "uhgggh…the body."

"Oh," she realized, sniffing a bit and smelling the cadaver, it wasn't that bad, she'd had much worse in her career. "Sorry, I didn't even think of that."

"Yeah, well," he breathed, "It's kinda strong."

"It's not that bad," she sniffed again, "Burnt is worse."

"Oh..." he retched again.

"Sorry," she stroked his hair, holding it out of the way. "I didn't mean to set it off again." 

"That's Ok," he breathed, "I'll get used to it in a minute."

The thought suddenly occurred to her that she didn't really want Gabriel to become inured to the smell of death the way she was.

 On nights when her own conscience, not the Witchblade, kept her awake she wondered sometimes if her very spirit was becoming harder because of the things she was forced to and sometimes chose to do. Gabriel was one of the few things in her life that was precious to her that didn't involve pain and death; even then he sometimes got in the way of it.

"That alright, we'll get out of here," she looked up to Vicky and Jake, who'd come out of the examination room, "You can fill me in later."

Vicky nodded, with the innate sense of female understanding. She knew now what had kept Sara from their meetings. She wasn't necessarily happy at playing second fiddle at the moment, but was willing to let that pass for the time being. 

"You Ok, man?" asked Jake, the subtleties of the situation passing right over his head. 

"Yeah," Gabriel straightened up, "Just wasn't expecting it, that's all."  

"That's Ok" she smiled, "Let's get out of here"

They walked out, into the little hallway right outside Vicky's place, Gabriel turned and shamefacedly tried to apologize.

"Sara" he stumbled, "I'm sorry I…well, I know I kinda embarrassed you in front of your friends. I.."

"Gabriel," she cut him off, gently taking his face into his hands. "Don't. Please. Do you have any idea how many people I know who aren't inured to the smell of a dead body?" he shook his head, "You. Just you. Hell, I'm so used to it sometimes it won't even surprise me any more. It's just there."

"You're a homicide cop" he protested, "That's your job." Her hands, which had been cupping his chin, slowly fell to his chest as he saw the play of emotions across her face. "What?"

"I tired, Gabriel," she rested her head on his shoulder and automatically his arms fit around her waist. "I'm so damn tired. All those bodies and murders and…it."

She suddenly pushed him away fiercely, "When the hell is this going to stop?" she demanded, "When can I go to sleep and not hear people dying in my dreams? When will this" she raided her right wrist, the Witchblade flaring with pent up emotion, "finally get it's own damn way and kill me? Why the hell is this happening to me???"  

"Because you're you," he answered simply, pulling her back into a tight embrace, "And for some reason God chose to put you here, now, and for a reason he saw fit. He made you a cop and he gave you the Witchblade so that you could make a difference in the world. You won't let evil pass by you, you'll confront it." He swallowed hard, "and maybe you will die. But you'll die fighting and that's all anyone can ask of you."

She sighed, letting herself rest against him in a rare moment of simple acceptance. "Die fighting, huh?   

"Yep," he agreed "but not yet, not while you can still kick some ass." 

That statement got the requisite grin, "Yeah," she squeezed him, "Yeah," 

"C'mon" he cajoled, "Let's go bust your psycho"

"Cool"   


End file.
